


So Darkness I Became

by MaryPSue



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Corruption, Gen, Mind Control, Mind Games, and all other good things that accompany this premise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2015-05-14
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:08:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 36,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The birth of a Fearling Prince should have been accompanied with more fanfare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Darkness_.

That’s the first thing he remembers.

Dark, and cold, and “he was scared” is an understatement, there’s fear freezing up his veins and crawling up his spine and whispering in his skull. Fingers clench, scrabbling against the rough ground and trying to pull himself upright, body responding far too slowly. Everything is darkness, and the darkness is _alive_ , it’s writhing and hissing and wrapping itself around him, pressing against him like a pet against a much-loved owner and caressing his face like a lover.

_Get out_.

His feet won’t quite hold him, his legs betray him when he least expects it, sending him crashing down face-first when he tries to walk. If he could only see, anything at all, then maybe there’d be a way out, some small shred of hope in this unending blackness.

But there isn’t. All there is is the dark, and the cold, gnawing at the marrow of his bones.

And a light. A tiny spot of golden light, too soft and too faint to illuminate anything around him, but it gives him a goal, something to move towards. And the smallest flicker of hope, not much bigger or brighter than the beacon ahead of him, wavers into being within the crushing depths of fear that seem to overwhelm him. If he can only get to the light, everything will be fine. Everything will be –

_Over_.

His fingers, then his feet, unsteady though they are, find stairs. The light is closer now, taking on a shape, and he staggers towards it, up through the blackness. The stairs have a shape, the tunnel he’s in has walls, and before he truly realizes what it means that he can see them, he’s out, falling face-first into an unexpected snowbank and staying there for what seems like an eternity, breathing in the fresh icy scent of the snow and feeling the bite of real cold sting his limbs, so unlike the cold below, the cold that was in the bone and in the brain and couldn’t be defeated with hot drinks or warm clothing or –

_snowball fights_

He rolls over, with a gasp, kicking up a spray of snow that sparkles in the clear silver light of the full moon. This isn’t the light that led him out, but he’s content to lie and bask in it. For the first time since he woke, for the first time he can _remember_ , he isn’t scared. There’s something reassuring about the moonlight, and the tiny flicker of hope flares into brilliant life. Everything is going to be all right.

A single golden butterfly flits past his face, its wings glowing softly with a light that isn’t borrowed from the moon, and something zings in the back of his mind. This, this is the light that led him out, but more than that, it’s familiar, he knows he’s seen something like this before but the memory eludes him. Frustrated, he reaches out to the butterfly, perhaps to touch it, perhaps to hold it, perhaps to capture it, even he doesn’t know, and stops.

His fingers are the cold grey of snow on a moonless night.

He doesn’t know why, but this is _wrong_. Wrong like the darkness that curled itself around him. Wrong like the sudden terror that comes crashing back into his mind. Wrong like _the way those shadows are moving._

He tries to pull himself to his feet, but the snowdrift is deep and soft and the more he struggles the more he only sinks farther in. And the shadows of the trees have formed into one long tendril of darkness, thick and black and speeding towards him over the snow. Before he can move they’re on him, coiling firmly around his midsection and there’s no way to fight them off or drive them away and they’re pulling him back, out of the light, out of the world, back to the darkness and the cold and the _fear_.

A scream of “NO!”, hoarse and ragged and almost unfamiliar, tears from his throat and his _wrong wrong wrong_ grey fingers leave long deep lines in the snow as he tries desperately to find something to hold, something to grip, something to keep him from being dragged back. He looks up to the moon again, and for a split second, seeing that cold impassive face looking down on his terror, he’s flooded with _hate_ so hot and bright that the shadows loosen their hold. It’s only for a second, though, before they seize him again and, with one final tug, pull him back into their chill and frightening embrace.

This time, though, it’s different. He knows the light is out there. He knows the _moon_ is out there, doing nothing, _watching_. Somewhere, somehow, there’s a way back. A way out.

And this time, he isn’t so totally alone. This time, he has his name.

Even so, Jamie spends a long time in the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time he tries to leave, the shadows find him faster. He barely catches a glimpse of the moon, diminished, half his silver face hidden, before they drag him under again.

…

The third time, he makes it all the way out. The snow is back, or perhaps it never left, although he’s been in the darkness for so long that he feels sure there must have been time without snow. He has the strangest knowledge-without-knowing that there is more to the world than snow.

Snow is important, though. Snow means – means –

He doesn’t know. He can’t remember.

He’s expecting the shadows that slither up to him, curling around his ankles as though trying to conceal their true intentions. He’s expecting them to grip him, suddenly, to drag him away.

It’s still terrifying.

He doesn’t want to go back. Not back into the dark, not when there’s a whole world up here, not when the dark _whispers_ and _wants_ and he screams until his throat is raw, anger or fear, it’s hard to tell, but nothing stops the inexorable pull of the shadows and he will leave no trace behind him –

There’s a noise like the dangerous creaking of ice that’s too thin underfoot and a flash of blue, and a wall of solid ice sprouts from the ground behind him, severing the shadows and leaving them to writhe and wither on the ground at his feet. He feels it in his chest, a sudden sharp stab where his heart should be, and when the shadows curl up at his heels like puppies seeking affection from their master, he can’t stop himself from reaching down and letting them escape up his sleeves.

And that’s when a pair of very white, very bare feet land in the snow in front of him, and a _familiar_ male voice asks, “Are you okay? I was -” His voice cuts off when Jamie looks up, and an expression of horrified disbelief scribbles itself across his _familiar familiar dammit I should know you_ features. The white-haired boy takes a stumbling step backwards, trying to hide the panic he still feels, Jamie _knows_ he still feels, because the boy’s eyes don’t lie and Jamie’s spent _so long_ steeping in fear that by now he can _smell_ it –

“Jamie?”

And now it’s Jamie’s turn to be dumbstruck, reeling away as if the sound of his name were a physical blow, shadows gathering protectively around him even as he tries to push them away. “How do you -” He stops, takes a deep breath, gathers himself up to his full height (which is only about an inch taller than the white-haired boy). “Who are you?”

 The fear is still there, but buried, now, under a thick layer of hurt and something else, something soft and sad and that reminds Jamie, oddly, of a tiny golden butterfly. “You don’t – You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

The boy’s fear is vanishing under this – this strange, _golden_ feeling and Jamie almost wants to bring it back, to threaten and scare the boy until his blue eyes widen again and all he feels is terror, because terror Jamie at least understands. Fear is hard and sharp and certain and not at all soft and confusing like this…whatever this is.

“You don’t remember,” the boy repeats, clutching at his staff as though it’s a lifeline. “I’m Jack? Jack Frost?” he says, and it’s a question, he’s watching Jamie’s eyes for something, something that he doesn’t see.

Jamie has a million questions, they’re all pushing at his brain to try to get to his tongue and spill out of his mouth. But the boy – Jack - speaks first. “How did you – what _happened_ to you?”

Jamie can’t do anything but shake his head.

“You don’t remember.” There’s an edge of frustration in Jack’s voice, and suddenly Jamie is torn – half terrified that Jack will leave him alone with the shadows and the fear, and half terrified that Jack _won’t_. That the world will only get wider and more confusing, and at least the shadows know him, perhaps they’ve been protecting him? Perhaps that’s why they’ve always dragged him back; because they knew that what was waiting outside was more complex and far more frightening than even they could be?

“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter,” Jack says, shaking his head, and he holds out a hand, and there it is, a flicker of uncertainty that Jamie could so easily fan back up into fright, all he needs to do is –

He takes Jack’s hand before he can think about it. The white-haired boy’s touch is like ice, the bracing cold of falling face-first into a snowbank. His hand looks even whiter against Jamie’s, while Jamie’s grey skin looks ashen and almost dead. Jamie leans in, close, _too close_ because Jack is leaning back, uncomfortable, and asks, “How do you know my name?”

There’s nothing but sadness in the depths of Jack’s blue eyes. “Doesn’t matter,” he repeats, and before Jamie can insist that yes, it _does_ matter, it matters more than anything, “Come with me. I think the – my friends might be able to help you.”

Jamie has a choice. He wouldn’t say that he doesn’t. But it isn’t much of one. Go with Jack, or go back to the darkness.

So he goes with Jack.


	3. Chapter 3

The palace protrudes from the mountaintop as if it grew there, hollowed out by time and weather and not by any earthly force. Tiny, jewel-bright creatures that look half bird and half human fill the air with the zips and zings of hummingbird wings and bring the dead rock to life.

Every single one of them disappears as soon as they spot Jamie. He only catches glimpses of them around the jutting rocks and towers that dot the landscape. None of them get any closer than the nearest outcropping before their tiny wings vanish with speed, and they hurry away through arches and around golden towers into the heart of the castle.

Jack frowns. “Well, now Tooth knows we’re here,” he says, and though he tries to play it off like a joke, Jamie can hear the edge of apprehension that sneaks into Jack’s laugh. This time, when he feels shadow curling protectively around him, he doesn’t try to fight it.

Jamie half-expects the inside of the castle to be as craggy and rough-hewn as the outside, with lots of twisty passages and Gothic arches and steep, sharply winding stairs. He couldn’t have been more wrong. The inside of the castle is bright and spacious, the mountain hollowed out and filled with gilded spires and brightly-coloured hanging…somethings, cylindrical and ringed with balconies and reminiscent of glorious enamelled birdcages. Everything is quiet and still, too still, as if the mountain is holding its breath.

And then there’s a shout, and a buzz like an entire hive of bees swarming at once, and Jamie is enveloped in a swirl of angry, jewel-bright miniature fairies. He’s lifted clear off his feet and knocked over onto his back, as tiny pointy beaks pluck at his clothes and jab at every inch of exposed skin. He flails wildly, trying to drive them off, and Jack yells something and there’s shadow there and Jamie _pulls_ –

The whip cracks through the cloud of minifairies encircling him, sweeping them away and smacking a few into the hanging structures. There’s a scream, rage edged with terrified desperation, and something bright flies past his face with a whistle and buries itself in a crevice beside his head. He half-turns, getting to his feet, and a golden sword, curved like a scimitar, is vibrating gently the barest sliver of an inch from his ear.

“Let – me – _go_!” a feminine voice wails, from somewhere above, among the hanging structures. There’s fear in the woman’s voice, the sick terror of someone who knows they are beyond hope, along with fury, and just a touch of loss. “After everything – we _trusted_ you! _I_ trusted you!”

“ _Ouch_ , Tooth, stop hitting me and _listen -_ ” There’s an _oof_ , like the air has all been forced out of Jack’s lungs, probably by a well-placed blow, and a green and blue figure appears from behind the nearest of the hanging structures, wielding the twin of the scimitar still standing beside Jamie. She pauses in midair for a moment, and then she spots him.

He only has a second to will the shadows in his whip into a solid blade before she’s on him, but he’s not a swordsman, he’s only blocking her blows with sheer luck and it’s only a matter of time before one gets through. There isn’t time for fear, not in this narrow little world of stroke and parry and dodge, and their eyes finally meet and he sees, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she will cut him down and feel not a moment’s hesitation or a shred of remorse…

And then her violet eyes widen, and her blade drops, hanging at her side uselessly. Jamie could strike, now, and land a killing blow, but for some inexplicable reason Jack trusts this feathered madwoman and for some even more inexplicable reason Jamie trusts Jack. Jack wouldn’t knowingly lead him into harm.

His blade dissolves back into nothing, the shadows uncurling grudgingly from around him, not wanting to leave him unprotected. Jamie takes a step backwards, raising his hands. The movement seems to remind the woman of whatever her grudge is, and her whole body tenses again, the arm holding the scimitar coming back up to point at Jamie’s nose. “Jack,” she calls, warily, not taking her eyes off of him, and Jamie hears a muffled _ugh_ from above. “I think you have some explaining to do.”

Jack’s head appears over the top of the nearest hanging structure. “That’s what I was trying to tell you, before you elbowed me in the stomach. It’s not Pitch.”

Jamie doesn’t know why, but it suddenly feels like all of his insides have been replaced with ice.

“And this isn’t another bid to cover the world with darkness? Because Jack, if this is some kind of trick -” She looks around, distracted by the stunned minifairies who, having picked themselves back up, are flocking to her.  “Oh, ladies, you did _beautifully_. Are you hurt?”

Jamie feels it somewhat unfair that she’s worried about the minifairies when the little monsters had attacked _him_ , but something tells him it would be wisest to keep his mouth shut.

A gust of chilly air ruffles his hair, and Jack touches down next to him, hurrying over to the feathered woman and her army of tiny fairies. “You guys are all okay, right?” he asks, and there’s genuine concern and worry in his voice. Jamie bites his lip because even if Jack is the only one who worries about him that doesn’t mean that Jack can’t worry about other people. Even if those other people _did_ just try to kill Jamie.

The way Jack looks at the feathered woman makes it hard to remember that, though.

“You’re _all_ okay?” Jack repeats, softly, and she quickly looks away. “You didn’t really think I’d betrayed you, did you?”

She looks back up at Jack. “No,” she says, after a long moment. “No. I trust you.”

The faint sharp note of fear, Jack’s conviction that he’ll be pushed away, fades. Jamie only notices it when it disappears.

The woman shoots a glare Jamie’s way. “Which is why he’s still standing. Maybe next time you take your friend visiting, tell him to leave off the hood? And the creepy shadow cloak? They’re…a _tiny_ bit misleading.”

Jack laughs awkwardly before bouncing up and spinning around to face Jamie. “You’re okay, too? Not hurt?” he asks, and finally Jamie has an answer for one of Jack’s questions. He nods once, keenly conscious of the feathered woman’s eyes on him. Her expression isn’t so much hostile now as it is curious, looking at him as though she’s mentally recording and labeling every one of his features, and Jamie isn’t sure which he likes better.

“Isn’t that -” she starts, and Jack’s face goes hard.

“Yeah. That’s why we’re here.”

“Wait.” Jamie looks from the woman, to Jack, and back again. “You know me? You _both_ know me?”

The woman starts at the sound of his voice, and Jamie doesn’t miss the way her hand tightens on the scimitar’s handle. “Jamie, isn’t it?” Her eyes flicker over to Jack, and there’s something softer and more forgiving in the look she gives Jamie when she turns back to him. “Your first believer?”

Jack just nods, looking uncharacteristically grim.

“Is that why we’re here?” Jamie asks, directing the question towards Jack. The woman doesn’t seem to know much more than Jamie himself does. He wants to ask what she means by ‘believer’, but Jack doesn’t give him time.

“Yeah. Jamie -” He falters, only for a second, stumbles over the name. “This is Tooth. She keeps everybody’s memories.”

Jamie doesn’t need Jack to tell him where this is going. “So you know what happened to me?”

“Well, no. I don’t,” Tooth answers, her iridescent wings flickering out of view as she rises. “But the teeth do!”

“The…teeth.” Jamie looks over at Jack, but gets no clues there. His answer, instead, comes from the airborne Tooth, now far above their heads.

“We collect children’s teeth because they hold memories, so we can remind them of the good times and the wonder and magic of the world if they need it. It shouldn’t be any trouble at all to find yours…hmm, no, not row 351C, that’s the Js – Jamie, what’s your last name?” Tooth calls down, not taking her eyes from the minifairy she’s talking to.

Jamie opens his mouth to answer, and realizes he doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter, though, as Jack answers for him.

“Bennett. They’ll be under Bennett.”

“How do _you_ know that?” Jamie demands, and there’s a flicker of apprehension from Jack. “ _I_ don’t know that. How do you know that?” He takes a step forward, and feels a flutter of something that’s halfway between pride and disgust when Jack shifts his grip on his staff and the air is once again filled with the familiar electric tang of fear. “ _Who are you?_ ”

“Found it!”

Tooth’s bright voice breaks the tension, both boys whirling to see her waving something that flashes golden in the light. For a moment, Jamie wonders why she’s waving around her scimitar, and then he sees that it’s too small and too round to be one of those deadly swords. The shadows that he hadn’t even realized he’d drawn to himself bleed away, scurrying back to their positions in corners and under arches.

Tooth hovers closer, holding out the golden thing. It’s cylindrical, a little shorter than his forearm, and made of gold, except for a flat panel on the top, which is set with brightly-coloured enamel. On one end, there’s a face, a small boy with wide eyes and a mop of dark hair and an awed, crooked grin.  Jamie looks at it and feels nothing, no sense of familiarity or loss. It means nothing to him.

“You have to take it,” Tooth says, gently, as if she’s talking to a skittish animal. “The girls and I can usually do this long-distance but for completely lost memories, it’s better if you’re in contact with the teeth themselves…” She looks up at Jamie, and he sees his own anxiety reflected on her face. What if this doesn’t work? What if it _does_? What happened to him, that’s so terrible and frightening to these people? Why, if they care so much about him, did he end up alone in the dark?

He’s not sure he wants to know.

But he’s come this far already. So he holds out a hand, and tries to ignore the way Tooth hesitates before putting the little gold box into it. It feels cold and surprisingly heavy against his palm.

For a moment, nothing happens. Jamie’s just about to ask Tooth what’s supposed to be happening when the enameled tiles on the top of the box begin to shimmer, spreading out to fill his field of vision. For an instant, the whole world is white –

\- _snow sheets walls charts ice moon snow -_

_\- a tidal wave of dark rising over his head -_

His scream echoes around the palace, bouncing off of distant walls and fading slowly into silence. Jamie staggers backwards, the stinging in his hand barely noticeable through the stabbing pain in his head. It feels like someone’s rammed an icicle straight into his brain at the base of his skull, a cold so intense that it _burns_ flaring up and down his spine and eating away at his insides. He stumbles back, seeking a shadow to slip into and curl up in, but instead, Jack catches him. Jamie snarls, and is rewarded with a jolt of instinctive panic from Jack, but it fades too soon to do Jamie any good.

He can barely hear Jack’s shout of “What happened?” over the throbbing in his head.

Tooth looks stunned, hovering in place. “I – I don’t know. Nothing like this has ever happened before.” She looks totally lost. “It didn’t work?”

“Didn’t work?” Jamie snaps. “No, it definitely – _ow_.” A particularly nasty stab of pain slams through his head, and he slumps against Jack. The throbbing is finally starting to subside, though, and the burning cold has lessened, though not by much. Jamie still feels cold, the deep-space freeze that only fear can cause, and oddly hollow.

The worry on Tooth’s face can’t quite hide the excitement in her voice. “What did you see?”

 “Snow. Lots of snow. A bed in a white room.” Jamie shakes his head. “And shadows.”

“Not much to go on,” Jack says. “Are you – do you feel any better?”

Jamie pushes away from Jack, a spike of hot embarrassment flooding through him, and stands, a little unsteadily. The pounding pain in his head has mostly subsided, but the hollow feeling hasn’t vanished, and for the first time, he really feels the loss of his memories, like a missing tooth or a blind spot in his vision.

“I’m fine,” he answers, quickly.

“Are you sure? Because you look kind of -”

“Jack, I’m _fine_ ,” Jamie insists. And, because Jack doesn’t look convinced, he puts on a smile. It feels uncomfortable and unfamiliar on his face, the muscles stiff from disuse.

Tooth makes a clucking noise. “When was the last time you flossed?”

And it’s then that twelve huge reindeer explode through one of the larger arches and into the palace, dragging an oversized sledge behind them, and land with a crash a few feet from where they’re standing.


	4. Chapter 4

Jamie jumps backwards, wrapping darkness around him without thinking, as a truly enormous man in red leaps from the sledge, brandishing twin swords that bear only a passing resemblance to Tooth’s scimitars with deadly self-assurance. One of Tooth’s minifairies follows close behind him.

“I came as soon as I got message. Where is Pitch?” the large man thunders, and Jamie takes another, more cautious step backwards. Unfortunately, this is enough to draw attention to him, and Jamie only just manages to dodge one shining blade. The other slices through his sleeve, and for the second it takes to duck under the next stroke he thinks that he’s made a narrow escape before the cut on his arm starts to burn.

Both Tooth and Jack are shouting, but Jamie isn’t listening, because there’s a patch of shadow right _there_ and he slips into the dark where the flashing blades can’t follow, sending a coil of darkness spiraling out after him just in case. His arm is really stinging now and he sucks in a breath when the fabric of his coat brushes against it, undoing the buttons and shrugging it off. The cut is clean and straight and not very deep, but it’s oozing sluggish black blood and for some reason the sight of it makes his throat tight and his chest constrict. The same feeling of _wrongness_ that he got when he first saw his fingers under the moonlight is crawling under his skin, muted somewhat but still itching at the back of his mind.

He tries to ignore it as he wraps up the cut in a shadow, pulling his coat back on and buttoning it up. As an afterthought, he knits the slash in the sleeve back together. And then he stops, and thinks.

The dark presses in against him, wraps itself around him, whispers to leave the people who mistrust him and attack him and come back down to the place where no light goes. The place where he _belongs_. And Jamie can’t think of a reason not to listen to it. His little adventure has only gone painfully wrong at every turn.

But.

There’s something Jamie should be remembering now, he’s sure of it. The gap tugs at him just as much as the darkness does, drawing him back towards the mountain palace despite everything. He’s missing so much, and there are people there, just out of reach, who can help him get it back.

He’s come this far.

So he takes a deep breath, and shakes off the tendrils of dark (which is easier, now; how long ago was it that they could grab him and drag him away no matter how he tried to stop them?), and melts back out of the shadow and into the palace.

Jamie’s no fool; he doesn’t come out of the same shadow he went into. It turns out not to matter, though; the large, red-robed man isn’t waiting for him. Instead, he’s being talked at by both Jack and Tooth, the former carrying most of the conversation while the latter nods along enthusiastically and occasionally jumps in to elaborate.

“- and I didn’t know what else to do, so I brought him here. And the mini-fairies, they kind of jumped the gun, and they all told Tooth that Pitch was back -”

“- and that’s why I sent Baby Tooth for help -”

“- but it isn’t him. Really.” Jack’s face is a picture of misery. “And now we’ve scared him off.”

“You’re giving yourselves too much credit,” Jamie jokes, and the three (and, he notices a half-second later, the minifairy) spin to face him. The sudden spike of alarm they all feel would be clear enough from their poses, all tensed to fight.

Nobody tries to stab him, though. And they all relax, slowly, tension unspooling into the air. Jamie feels brave enough to take another step closer. No one tries to stop him. A few short steps later, and Jamie rejoins the group, keeping a wary eye on the man in red.

“Hi,” he tries.

 The man’s impressive eyebrows furrow, and he leans forward, giving Jamie the same scrutinizing look that Jamie got from Tooth not so long ago. “Jamie Bennett?” he says, sounding incredulous. Jamie nods, because yes, that’s his name. At least, if the moon and Jack Frost are to be trusted. He still isn’t quite sure.

The man in red sighs heavily, shaking his head. And then he smiles. Even through the thick, white beard that obscures half his face, it’s the biggest, _jolliest_ smile anyone’s ever given Jamie, and it throws him for a loop. “Jack tells me you have lost your memories.” He claps Jamie on the shoulder, and his hands are _huge_ and warm and Jamie flinches before realizing that it’s not an attack, he’s not hurt. “No matter! We find them again, yes?” His eyes, despite their twinkling, are serious. “We are your friends, and we will help.”

Jamie’s chest feels oddly tight again, and it takes him a moment to realise that it’s not from fear. He manages a strangled-sounding “thanks”, and gets another smile in return. He tries not to wince when the man pats his shoulder, jostling the cut on his arm, but the pain must have shown on his face because suddenly Tooth’s there, fussing. “I’m fine,” he insists.

The man in red frowns. “You are hurt?”

“Just a scratch. I’m _fine_.” What _is_ it with these people and treating him like he’s made of glass? Partly in a bid to change the subject, partly because he actually wants to know, Jamie asks, “Who are you, anyway?”

The large man’s enthusiasm doesn’t seem at all dimmed as he booms out, “Nicholas St. North! Adventurer, Guardian, bringer of joy and wonder! You might know me better as Santa Claus?” He stops, watching Jamie expectantly.

Jamie shakes his head. None of the names mean anything to him, although the word ‘Guardian’ sets off an uncomfortable zing in the back of his mind, not unlike the butterfly that led him out of the dark. “Nice to meet you,” he says, because he’s not sure what else to say.

He wishes they wouldn’t all look so disappointed. Especially Jack.

“Is nice to meet you also!” The man in red is the first to recover. “Me, you may call North.” A thought seems to strike him, and he says, “Has Tooth -”

“We tried, with the teeth,” Tooth interrupts, holding up the golden cylinder that apparently ought to hold Jamie’s memories. “It didn’t – it just hurt him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Jamie doesn’t really listen to the reply. Jack’s still looking at him like he’s never seen Jamie before, and Jamie doesn’t know how to make it better.  He’s still not sure why, but for some reason having Jack look at him like that is almost unbearable.

He finally has to turn away, just in time to hear Tooth gasp. The box is open in her hands, and she’s staring into it with horror written plainly across her face.  “Oh no no no _no_! How did this happen?”

Jamie leans over, just enough to see into the box. The teeth – _his_ teeth – are arranged in neat rows, nestled snugly in a velvet lining. And each and every one of them is cracked, split open like eggshells to reveal a black and rotten interior.

Tooth’s practically beside herself, muttering in a low and steady buzz about how this could have happened, this _shouldn’t_ have happened, she takes such good care of the teeth, _how could this have happened_ , and she barely protests when Jamie takes the box from her. It’s strange, looking in at all of these little pieces of his head, a past he’s been abruptly cut off from. He tentatively prods an incisor with one finger

\- _flying down the street inches from the pavement face-first on a sled and an ever-extending trail of ice_ -

only to be rewarded with a jolt of pain as if the tooth had bitten him. As he watches, the black decay swarms quickly over the enamel, reducing the tooth to dust in a matter of seconds.

“Guess that explains that, then.”

Jamie starts at the sound of Jack’s voice, nearly dropping the box. Tooth squeaks, reaching out to catch it, and takes it from Jamie with a sad look at its pitiful contents.

Jamie thinks that maybe he should have known it wasn’t going to be that easy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CafCow drew an absolutely lovely interpretation of my Jamie! You should all go and have a peek: http://cafcow.deviantart.art/Older-Jamie-Fearling-Prince-Jamie-356696299

Jamie isn’t sure about a lot of things, but there is one thing he does know for certain: he likes the sleigh. It reminds him of – of _something_ , one of the half-recovered tooth memories he thinks, an impression of speed and reckless abandon that’s somehow tied up with snow. It helps that North seems determined to terrify the pants off of his passengers, although Jack looks like he’s enjoying the loop-the-loops, gleefully bouncing around the sleigh and off onto the runners. And Jamie’s not one to be frightened of a little wild sleigh ride, not even one taking place miles up in the air. Tooth hadn’t come with them, electing instead to stay at the Tooth Palace and make sure that the strange decay that’s infested Jamie’s teeth hasn’t spread. Somehow, Jamie doubts it. Jack seems convinced that it’s got something to do with Jamie himself, and Jamie finds he agrees.

The ride ends too soon. They touch down on a snowy landing strip, a huge, furry creature signaling them safely down. For some reason, Jamie’s brain throws up the word _yeti_ , a strange little collection of syllables that nevertheless seems to suit the creatures that fill the workshop.

Their arrival prompts an unnecessary amount of fanfare, and Jamie sends shadows to chase after the little red-clad jingling creatures that are constantly underfoot. It’s only when he actually catches one and dangles it upside-down by one foot in front of his face that North and Jack notice, and the looks Jamie gets are enough to make him confine his elf-frightening to when he thinks they can’t see him.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they were just scared of him. He wouldn’t mind – well, he’d hardly mind at all if they were just scared of him. But it’s the disappointment – and the – the _something else_ , something soft and sad and slightly cloying, that makes his insides knot.

The inside of the fortress is, again, not at all what Jamie was expecting. The whole place is alive, a constant low hubbub and mechanical clatter underlying the perpetual motion of the place. Everywhere Jamie looks, there’s something new and marvelous, flying overhead or whizzing underfoot or whirling past, barely missing his ear. Everything makes a noise, everything’s bright and warm and busy, there isn’t so much as a single corner where the hustle and bustle and good cheer don’t penetrate.

It’s draining. Jamie is absolutely exhausted by the time they finally arrive at the little office above the production floor, and drops into a chair almost before North invites him to have a seat. It’s probably rude, but he can’t really muster the energy to care.

North and Jack exchange a look.

“Sleigh ride has taken much out of you,” North finally concludes. “Have cookie, get your strength back.”

Jamie doesn’t notice for a few solid seconds that there’s an elf nudging his leg, until the insistent jingling makes him look down. The little creature takes one look at him and drops the plate of cookies it’s been proffering, making a beeline for Jack and attempting to hide behind the other boy’s ankles. To be totally honest, it’s more refreshing than the cookies would have been – not to mention hilarious to watch – but after the reaction he got for scaring the elves on arrival, Jamie’s a little cautious about showing it. So he pretends not to notice, asking, “So what now?”

“Now? Now we find out truth,” North says, shutting the door behind him, and there’s absolutely nothing jolly about his expression.

Jamie isn’t _frightened_. Not exactly. Even _apprehensive_ might be too strong a word. But he still shifts backwards in the chair when the large man steps forward. North has a naturally imposing presence, managing to loom even when he isn’t trying, and right now, he seems to be trying.

“Tell us whole story. From beginning. Everything you remember.” He sounds like he’s trying to be kind, but Jamie can’t help but hear the edge of threat. He shakes his head, there’s still nothing but blank, darkness stretching back as far as he can recall.

“It’s just dark.” For the first time, Jamie wonders if he was born in the darkness. For all he knows, he was, but for these people to know him, for him to even have memories to recover, he must have had some sort of life before. “I think I was underground. I tried to leave a couple times, but…” He waves a hand, and the shadows gathered in the rafters pour down, wrapping around the terrified elf and dragging it backwards a few feet before Jamie makes them let go. They sulk their way back into the corners.

There’s a _thump_ , and both North and Jamie turn to Jack, whose fist is still clenched and resting on the edge of the massive desk. He’s glaring at the place where Jamie’s shadows crawled down the wall with so much vehemence that Jamie’s a little surprised it isn’t already covered in ice.

“Jack?” North asks, and Jack spins, like he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Jack practically spits. “We should be trying to undo whatever Pitch did to him, not – not sitting around chatting and eating _cookies_!” There’s a crackling noise as ice crawls across the surface of the desk, spreading rapidly out from Jack’s still-clenched fist.

“Who?” Jamie asks, and Jack’s eyes flicker over to Jamie, but won’t meet his gaze. And suddenly Jamie’s sick of this, sick of not understanding and not remembering and being treated like – like a _kid_ , like he has to be protected from something. “You’re all scared of this Pitch, but I don’t know who he is or why he’s important, or what any of this has to do with me, and I don’t even know who any of _you_ are, I don’t know anything at all, and I just want an _explanation_!”

He’s on his feet and so are they, and maybe he’s drawn down a bit too much darkness, maybe he’s let himself curl into a comforting cocoon of embracing shadow, but he wonders _what_ is making them so frightened that both of them have reached for their respective weapons.

 - _he strikes fear into their hearts and it’s_ delicious, _the weakness dissipates and the shadows pluck at him_ –

 Jamie forces himself to breathe in, unraveling the cocoon of darkness. The shadows peel away reluctantly, this time not retreating back to the corners, but pooling protectively around his feet.  For a moment, the only sound in the office is the frightened whimpering of the elf.

“Sorry,” Jamie mutters, staring at the dropped plate of cookies by his feet. The restless shadows have begun to lap at the crumbs.

“No, you have good point,” North concludes, thoughtfully. When Jack turns to give him an incredulous look, he hastily adds, “And so does Jack. There might be something in my library that can help. I will look. And in meantime, Jack can fill you in.”

“Wh- No, North, I -” Jack sputters, but the large man is already sweeping out of the room, booming out instructions to the yetis who have gathered at the door, the elf scurrying along in his wake.

Jack blows out a breath with a low whistle, runs a hand through his hair, and spins on the spot, turning on one bare heel. “Okay,” he says, and Jamie gets the distinct feeling that Jack isn’t talking to him. “Okay.” He takes a deep breath and looks up, finally meeting Jamie’s eyes. “Where do you want me to start?”

“I don’t know. The beginning?” Jamie’s barely trying to hide his frustration now. “I don’t know _anything._ Who are you? How do you know me?” His voice cracks embarrassingly when he asks, “Who am _I_?”

Jack’s eyebrows shoot up, and whatever restless energy that has been propelling him dissolves. His expression is a little less nervous when he answers, “You’re Jamie Bennett. You’re – wow, you’ve gotta be at least seventeen by now.” He stuffs his hands into the pocket on the front of his hooded sweatshirt, leans back on the desk, and looks down at his bare feet. Just when Jamie’s starting to wonder if that’s all he’s going to get out of him, Jack says, “And you w- you _are -_ ” He stops, and there’s a crackling noise as a layer of frost scrolls slowly and almost sadly across the floor from under his feet. “You were the first person to see me. The first person to _believe_ in me. And I’ve been your friend ever since.”

The shadows pooled around Jamie’s feet hiss, writhing agitatedly. Jamie ignores them as best he can. “Tooth said that too, that I was your first believer. What does that mean?”

Jack takes a deep breath. “It’s sort of a long story.”

It is. Jamie listens, enraptured, as Jack spins out the tale, a battle of belief and fear, complete with wild, exaggerated hand gestures and excited leaps and bounds around the room. At one point, Jamie contributes a shadow puppet to play the villain, and Jack re-enacts a dramatic battle that Jamie’s sure is at least partly embellished. When he points that out, though, Jack just feigns hurt at being disbelieved, with a twinkle in his eye that tells Jamie he isn’t really bothered at all.

By the time Jack draws the story to a close, the sky visible through the windows all along the back wall is the light blue of early morning, and growing brighter by the second. It makes the back of Jamie’s neck prickle uncomfortably, and he shifts down in the chair seeking a patch of darker shadow. Jack stops mid-sentence. “Are you okay?”

“’m fine,” Jamie answers, and his voice sounds weak and drowsy even to his ears. He tries to sound more awake when he asks, “So all that happened when I was just little?”

“Yeah.” The smile slips from Jack’s face for a fraction of a second, reappearing almost instantly, but with a slightly strained quality that wasn’t there before. “Back when you barely came up to my big toe.”

Jamie opens his mouth to ask what else Jack knows, about him and his life and how he wound up here, but all that comes out is an enormous yawn. It is, of course, too much to hope that Jack might not have noticed.

“Jamie? Are you awake?”

Jamie makes a noise that is halfway between an affirmative mumble and someone talking in their sleep. The shadows are cowering away from the light, their threatening hisses and whispers growing increasingly desperate as they’re stripped away from him by the gathering dawn.

“Whoa, you do _not_ look okay.” Jamie blinks, and when he opens his eyes Jack is there, staring down at him with his glacier-blue eyes full of worry. Jamie makes a noise that probably would’ve sounded more like ‘sun’ if he’d been more awake and his voice had been cooperating. Still, Jack seems to get the gist; the worry turns to slow comprehension as he glances up at the windows.

“Morning?” he asks, and Jamie nods, or thinks he does. He suddenly feels as weak as a newborn kitten, and the brightness of the room is not helping. Jack nods back.  “You look pretty wiped. North’s got plenty of guest rooms, you can catch some sleep.” He slings an arm around Jamie’s shoulders, and pulls him to his feet. Jamie tries to protest, but his body seems to have gone on strike, exhaustion weighing on his limbs like lead and dragging his eyelids shut.

He isn’t sure how they manage to make it down the hall, but he feels it when they turn into a darkened room, a sudden burst of energy that dies quickly down again. It’s blissfully cool, and the prickling itch of the light all but disappears, leaving Jamie tired but not uncomfortable.

He barely notices that they’ve stopped, until he’s abruptly no longer vertical. He opens his eyes for just long enough to register that he’s being lowered rather clumsily into a bed, before the soft mattress nearly swallows him. Jack pulls the covers up around Jamie’s chin, and Jamie burrows gratefully into them. There’s something wistful in Jack’s voice when he says, “Just like old times, huh?”

The room is silent for a long moment, and the sudden and unannounced dull swell of fear from Jack is almost enough to wake Jamie up again, a slow-burning foreboding that Jamie doesn’t even try to interpret.

Then a hand ruffles his hair, and Jack says, “Sleep tight, kiddo.” The door creaks and then shuts, adding another layer to the comforting blanket of darkness that envelops Jamie.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

_Darkness._

It’s dark, and cold, and he is alone. No light penetrates the dark to drive off the terror that sinks into his skin. Nothing gives the shadows definition; Jamie could be trapped in a space barely big enough to stand up in or alone in a cavern the size of the continental United States and he would never know the difference. And the darkness is _alive,_ it’s writhing and hissing and wrapping itself around him –

He knows this place. He’s been here before.

And just as the realization strikes him, he hears the voice.

“ _There_ you are.”

Jamie’s on his feet in an instant, spinning as he looks for the source of the voice. It’s no use, though; the darkness is absolute.

“I was worried,” the voice continues, smooth and dark and completely disembodied, and Jamie lets the dark wrap around him, both shield and camouflage. Out of the corner of his eye, he could swear he sees motion, a flicker of white in the unending blackness. He whirls to face it, only to hear the voice from behind him. “You aren’t nearly ready to be out on your own.”

“What -” Jamie’s throat closes, and while he’s fighting to get his voice back, he _knows_ he sees a flash of eyes in the dark, bright and golden and menacing. “Who are you? Where are we?”

The eyes reappear, a hint of amusement in their depths, and then a face, narrow and pale. The darkness resolves itself into a figure, and the back of Jamie’s mind throbs with a dull and half-remembered dread. “We’re in a nightmare. _Your_ nightmare,” he says, matter-of-factly, turning away from Jamie to examine the darkness that surrounds them. “Quite a good one, too, for a first try.”

Jamie looks around again, seeing the overwhelming dark with new eyes. “You mean I made this?”

“All by yourself. It’s a little basic, but then, monsters come and go. Fear of the dark?” He looks back to Jamie, and his smile, though wicked and jagged, is proud, and Jamie feels oddly warm. “That’s forever.”

“You’re him,” Jamie blurts. “Pitch Black.”

The man inclines his head. “You sound disappointed.”

Jamie’s not _disappointed_ , precisely, but he is a little surprised. From what he’s heard, he was half-expecting some kind of vague, amorphous menace, some kind of monster without any human feeling but hate. Not a black-clad man with a pointed face and a smile that makes him feel warm. “Jack told me about you.”

“So that’s where you’ve been.” For a moment, all amusement vanishes from Pitch’s face, the smile turning into a snarl, and the back of Jamie’s mind explodes into a chorus of muffled, indecipherable warnings. The feeling passes as soon as the snarl does, but Jamie can’t quite shake the unease that trails its fingers, spider-like, down his spine. “And what did the _Guardians_ have to say about me? Nothing good, I hope.”

“They’re scared of you,” Jamie answers, slowly, and the man – _Pitch_ – laughs, sounding delighted.

“Do tell.” He steps back into the dark, melting into it until no trace of him is visible. “I must be doing something right.”

“Nearly killing them all might’ve had something to do with it,” Jamie says. The dark echoes with the sound of Pitch’s laughter.

“They told you about that? Oh, of course they did. They’d want you to be afraid as well.” And suddenly there’s a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, and the muffled throbs of alarm in the back of his mind are fading, receding into nothing but a memory of a memory. The shadows _purr_ at the touch, and for the life of him Jamie can’t remember why he’d been so scared. “But did they tell you the rest?”

“The rest?” Jamie repeats, and he knows he sounds slow and unintelligent. It’s hard to think through the happy cooing of his shadows.

There’s a heavy layer of concern in Pitch’s voice when he asks, “They didn’t tell you?” His grip tightens, and Jamie has to resist the urge to lean into the arm around his shoulders. “Oh, you have no idea how they betrayed you.”

That punches through the contented fog filling Jamie’s head. “What?”

Pitch steps forward, releasing Jamie as he moves back into Jamie’s line of sight, and it takes everything Jamie has not to follow him. He looks about to say something when he abruptly stops, and stares off to his right, as if listening to something Jamie can’t hear. “Well, why don’t you ask them yourself?”

“What?” Jamie repeats, stupidly. “No, tell me! What did -”

“Jamie?” It’s Jack’s voice, distant and echoing strangely, with an edge to it that suggests he’s about two more shouts from panic.

“Go back to your Guardians,” Pitch says, backing into the shadows. “They’ll be wondering where you are – and you wouldn’t want to _scare_ them.”

“Wait,” Jamie begs, but golden eyes are all that’s left and a moment later, they blink out. The dark begins to fade into grey, turning curiously two-dimensional and distant, as though he’s watching from a great distance, and then –

Jamie opens his eyes.

It takes him a moment to orient himself, to figure out that he’s lying flat on the floor of an unfamiliar room. It takes a moment longer to figure out that he has somehow ended up half-in, half-out of a shadow, underneath the bed. A long slice of light leaks in through the opened door, and Jamie backs away from it.

There are heavy footsteps outside the door, and something blocks the sliver of light. “You left him alone?” North’s voice asks, low and not so much threatening as promising.

“You didn’t see him, North.” The fear practically radiates off of Jack, and Jamie manages to tug himself back out of the pool of shadow he’s fallen into. “He wasn’t much more than a shadow himself. He _needed_ some rest, and it’s not like he would’ve been much of a threat in that state.” There’s a pause, and a fresh wave of worry, somehow richer this time. “He’s not a threat _anyway_ , right? I mean, this is _Jamie_ we’re talking about, Jamie wouldn’t -”

“We do not know what Jamie would do,” North rumbles. “Fiercest protector can become greatest foe when possessed by fearlings. We must be careful.”

Jack’s bare feet barely make a sound on the wooden floor. “You think that’s what happened to him? He’s possessed?”

“This is what I hope, yes.”

“You _hope_? You’re _hoping_ that Jamie’s possessed?”

There’s not even a hint of his usual good cheer when North says, “If you knew what else he could be, you would have same hope.”

Jack might have pressed him further, but it’s then that Jamie bangs his head on the underside of the bed.

The voices from the hall go quiet, and then Jack’s bare feet land, whisper-silent, a few feet from the bed. The blanket dangling in front of Jamie is whipped aside, and he finds himself staring at the crook of Jack’s staff, glowing the blue of sunlight through icebergs and emitting the same chill as a glacier. Jamie bites back a hiss at the throbbing pain in his head. “ _Ow._ It’s just me! Don’t freeze me, please.”

“Jamie?” The staff is withdrawn, Jack’s feet vanish, and then his head appears, upside-down, over the edge of the bed. “ _There_ you are!” His smile dips from brilliantly relieved to puzzled. “What’re you doing down there?”

“Sleeping?”

“ _Under_ the bed?”

Jamie shifts backwards uncomfortably. “It’s darker down here.” And the patch of shadow he’s curled up in is more comfortable than the mattress, but it would probably be rude to mention that and he’s very sure, now, that he doesn’t want to insult North.

For a split second, Jack looks infinitely sad, before his head disappears over the edge of the bed again. Jamie takes this as his cue, slithering out from under the bed and gathering himself back together out of the dark. “Did you find anything out?” he asks, not really sure he wants to hear the answer. The word _betrayed_ seems to be looping, broken-record, through the back of his mind and he can’t help but wonder, now, why they’re so determined to change him. He shakes his head, hearing his neck pop, and tells himself he’s being silly. Jack and his friends haven’t done anything to hurt him. _Wouldn’t_ do anything to hurt him.

“Not yet,” Jack admits, and his smile looks as forced as Jamie’s feels. “But we’ll keep looking.”


	7. Chapter 7

Jack insists on giving Jamie a tour of the workshop, and Jamie, despite feeling somewhat wary after yesterday’s – well, last night’s – near-collapse, trails along. It’s a fascinating tour, to be fair, and before long Jamie’s absorbed enough in the sights to forget the weakness that trickles through his limbs and slows his steps.

At least, he forgets it until they reach the observatory.

The balcony is open to the night air, a cool breeze beckoning Jamie forward. He follows, gladly – it’s stiflingly warm and noisy inside, and the dark and the quiet seems like a little patch of heaven.

And then he steps out from under the roof and into the moonlight.

The silvery beams that were once so reassuring now seem harsh and unforgiving, pinning him down like a bug under a magnifying glass, their light cold and sharp and cruel. Jamie flinches, draws back into the shadow of the roof. For an instant, he swears that the same sweet, sad voice that first called him by his name now repeats it, sounding sadder than before, and another unfamiliar surge of hate floods through him. When all it’s ever done is watch him suffer, even _hurt_ him, what right does the moon have to sound _so disappointed_ –

“Jamie?” Jack’s voice is tentative, but the way he holds his staff is sure and threatening, and the cold pulse of his fear shocks Jamie back to reality. “You okay, there?” It’s clear from the look on his face that Jack isn’t worried about Jamie, so much as worried _by_ Jamie.

_We do not know what Jamie would do._

_They’re scared of you._

“Fine,” Jamie answers, too quickly. His head is pounding, especially around his eyes, and Jack’s still looking at him like he’s a wild animal that might bite at any moment. “Can we go somewhere else?”

“Yeah,” Jack says, and it’s just as hurried. “Yeah, good idea. Hey, do you want some hot chocolate?”

“Sure,” Jamie agrees. Anything to get away from the moonlight.

…

The yeti in charge of the kitchen keeps shooting suspicious glances at Jamie. Interestingly enough, he’s also keeping his watchful eye on Jack, growing tense whenever the winter spirit comes within two feet of anything glass and groaning audibly when Jack jumps onto a counter to get the cocoa powder from a high cabinet. Jack doesn’t seem to notice, walking the length of the counter to plop the tin of cocoa down beside the stove before leaping back down. “Mind grabbing the milk for me, Joe?” he asks, and the yeti rolls his eyes and opens a door that turns out to lead not into another cabinet but straight out into the snow.

“You don’t need a fridge when you live at the North Pole,” Jack says, in answer to Jamie’s unspoken question, and the yeti grumbles something unintelligible and gently but firmly presses Jack into one of the kitchen chairs. “Oh, you’re going to make the cocoa for us? Aw, Joe, I didn’t know you cared.”

Jamie doesn’t know what language the yetis speak – if it’s a language at all – and he definitely doesn’t understand it, but even so it isn’t hard to tell that Joe just wants to keep Jack away from the stove.

 The silence that follows is almost painfully awkward, as Jamie tries to think of a way to phrase the millions of questions that are still swarming around in his head. What he really wants to know is why Pitch had said that the Guardians betrayed him, but he can’t exactly ask, “So what horrible thing did you do to me?”, and he has the very strong feeling that letting them know he’s been talking to Pitch won’t end well. They already distrust him; he doesn’t want to give them a good reason to.

Luckily, he doesn’t have long to stew over it. The cocoa isn’t even done before the kitchen door creaks open, and a smallish, roundish face appears around it, casting a quick and searching glance over the room and lighting up in a bright smile when his eyes fall on Jack. Jack, in turn, pops out of his chair – earning a groan from the yeti – and hurries over to the door in two bounds, throwing it open to reveal that the face belongs to an equally smallish and roundish gentleman. “Sandy! Hey, it’s good to see you!”

The smallish gentleman cants his head to one side as something golden swirls above it, forming into the shape of a candy cane, which morphs into a question mark. For some reason, the shimmering shapes look familiar, but Jamie can’t quite put his finger on why.

Jack shakes his head, and then apparently remembers that he can speak. “He’s been in the library since sundown.” He paused, stuffing both hands in his hoodie pocket. “I wonder if he’d like some hot chocolate. Wait, what am I saying? This is North, of course he would. Guy’s got a bigger sweet tooth than – Jamie? Crap, where’d he go?”

“Nowhere,” Jamie answers, quickly. He hadn’t really meant to hide, but his disastrous first encounters with two of Jack’s friends must have made it a reflex. He shoos the shadows away, bracing himself for the little golden man’s reaction.

Instead of the blow he’s half-expecting, Jamie gets a wave and a friendly smile. And if the smile looks just a little sad, Jamie’s not going to question it. Unlike the others, this little gentleman doesn’t seem frightened at all by Jamie’s appearance, or the way he slips out of the shadows.

“See, that’s why North put out the call. Jamie, you have to stop vanishing on us,” Jack jokes, as if answering an unspoken question. “Hey, Sandy, do you -”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence, because that’s when Jamie remembers where he’s seen that sparkling sand before. “It was you!”

And that gets him their full attention, a sliver of apprehension from the little gentleman and an almost painfully hopeful smile from Jack. “You remember Sandy?”

“No,” Jamie has to admit, although the way Jack’s face falls makes him wish he did. “No, I – you sent me a butterfly. In the dark.”

The little man’s – Sandy’s – face is a picture of confusion, but he waves his hands and the sands swirl into the shape of a golden-glowing butterfly. Jamie nods in recognition, and tries to quash the tiny tendril of resentment that coils up inside him at the thought that he last saw this under the full moonlight. How long ago was it? How long was he trapped in darkness, alone –

“Whoa, hey, you didn’t tell me you’d found him like this,” Jack says to the little gentleman – Sandy -  sounding almost as hurt as Jamie feels.

“You knew I was down there?” There’s more venom in the words than he’d meant them to carry, but the Sandman doesn’t seem offended, simply shaking his head. A series of gestures, accompanied by swirls of sand, leave Jamie none the wiser but feeling somehow comforted.

“I asked Sandy to keep an eye out for you, make sure to send you sweet dreams,” Jack explains, seeing the look on Jamie’s face. “After you -” He stops, bites off the sentence mid-word, and his face turns shuttered and dark. When he smiles again, it’s too bright, too brittle, like a day so cold that clouds can’t form, a brilliantly deceptive blue sky that will freeze you to the marrow within minutes. “After some bad stuff happened. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“And you couldn’t do that yourself?”

Jack shrugs, and it’s quick and tight, not the expansive, expressive kind of gesture he usually makes. Jamie gets the feeling that he really wants to know whatever it is that Jack doesn’t want to tell him. If only he knew how to ask, and get a truthful answer. “Anyway. Sandy, you were saying?”

It takes a while, and more wrong guesses than anyone would like to admit, but they finally figure out that Sandy had aimed his dreams at _Jamie_ , rather than _where Jamie happened to be at the time_. So he hadn’t even noticed anything was wrong until –

“Wait. The dreamsand came back…what? Bigger? Uglier? Sandy, you’re not making any sense.”

The little gentleman huffs in frustration, and whips up another butterfly, which he blows directly at Jamie’s face. Before Jamie has time to react, it lands, feather-light, on his nose.

There’s a pinprick of warmth, and he wrinkles his nose, feeling a flicker of something he can’t quite name, and the butterfly turns black. It happens slowly, great looping whorls spreading over the little sand-shape’s broad wings, until the whole thing’s completely covered in a faintly-shimmering darkness. It’s pretty, in a strange and slightly unnerving way, and when it flutters those black wings the brush of cool air against Jamie’s cheeks almost feels like a kiss.

The reaction is instantaneous.  Jack stumbles backwards, and the look of dumbfounded horror on his face would be enough of a giveaway even if Jamie couldn’t feel the rush of his fear. His expression quickly turns grim, though, and he swings his staff around to point at the butterfly now fluttering around Jamie’s head.

“What are you _doing_?” Jamie asks, and Jack’s staff glows blue, a faint sharp scent of snow filling the air. Jamie grabs the little sand-creature out of the air and cups it protectively in both hands, noting as he does that its wings have gone serrated along the edge, more like a bat than a butterfly. Its wingbeats stir up faint impressions of dark wings overhead, some unseen airborne terror.

“What are _you_ doing?” Jack demands. “That’s a _nightmare_.”

“I know,” Jamie answers, and he really doesn’t know why this is such a big deal, but the temperature in the kitchen is dropping fast. He looks to the Sandman, hoping for a clue, but all he gets is a wary, scrutinizing look, and a gesture towards the little nightmare that is clearly intended for Jack, who doesn’t notice.

“You just turned that dream into a nightmare and now you’re trying to act like it’s nothing?” Jack doesn’t look away from Jamie’s closed hands, but he’s clearly not talking to Jamie when he asks, “How long did Pitch say it took him to figure out how to do that?”

 _Of course_. That’s why he’s so upset about the nightmare, which even now is trying to seep between Jamie’s fingers. It’s only a little fear, barely big enough to make a sleeper frown, but having it around still feels comforting, like a particularly companionable pet. Jamie tries to ignore the pang of loss when he offers, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. You can have it back -”

The ripple of fear is dull and remembered and, surprisingly enough, comes not just from Jack. But the Sandman shakes his head and holds out one small hand and Jamie, grudgingly, lets go of the little creature. It nuzzles against his fingers, and he has to blow on it gently to get it to let go, giving it a little nudge towards the Sandman. Its black wings beat out a steady pattern of night air and high-pitched, squeaking cries, abruptly silenced when it lands on Sandy’s finger and gold scrolls across it again.

Suddenly, Jamie feels heavy as lead and very, very tired. He slumps down into his seat and doesn’t even have to try to ignore the looks he gets.

“Well,” Jack finally says, and the kitchen seems instantly ten degrees warmer, “I guess having little nightmares come back instead of dreamsand would make me wonder too. Thanks for telling me something was wrong, anyway. I wouldn’t’ve even known to look -” And he halts again, biting back words like he’s dragging himself away from the lip of some massive, overhanging cliff. “Hey, why don’t we take North some of that cocoa? It’s got to be almost done by now, and he did want to see you guys.” The last sentence is aimed at Sandy, who nods knowingly.

Jamie can’t bring himself to care about working out whatever Jack’s not saying. “You go,” he says, and it comes out a little more like a sigh. “I just want to sleep.”

Jack looks at him, long enough for Jamie to start to feel uncomfortable even through the haze of exhaustion, and nods. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

Sandy waves a hand, and a tiny golden-sand figure above his head slides into a tiny golden-sand bed, a tinier golden-sand butterfly appearing and fluttering around the little figure’s head. Jamie can’t make heads or tails of this, and it must show on his face, because Jack sighs. “He’s offering to send you good dreams.”

“Oh.” Jamie remembers the oppressive dark he’d found himself in the first time he’d fallen asleep, and almost agrees immediately before a traitorous little voice in the back of his mind whispers, _He won’t find you if you’re not in a nightmare_. How he knows, he has no idea. Why he cares, he has even less of a clue. If he believes a single word of what Jack’s told him, Jamie shouldn’t be looking forward to seeing Pitch again, should be afraid of what the Nightmare King can do, should be keeping his distance.

 “…yeah,” he finally answers. “Please. I’d like that.”

And he tries to ignore the thought that whispers that Pitch wouldn’t have made him destroy the nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter is now a comic! Please go have a look: http://obi-quiet.deviantart.com/art/So-Darkness-I-Became-Pg-1-357809007


	8. Chapter 8

_Snow._

_The drifts are as high as houses, the sky a bright and brittle blue, the air just this side of cold. The world is white, as far as the eye can see, sparkling sheets of perfectly pristine snow, just begging to be trampled upon and turned into forts and figures - and projectiles._

_No one’s going to school today. No one would want to._

“Snow days. He’s got these evil shadows at his beck and call, he makes _nightmares_ …but he still dreams about snow days. That’s good, right?”

The brilliant white world goes _thin_ , and Jack’s oddly-distant, disembodied voice whispers, “Whoops, sorry. Won’t wake the sleeper.” The _thin_ ness disappears, the snow crackles underfoot, a soft, sighing, settling noise fills the world.

_And from behind him, Jack’s voice, normal and bright and carefree, calls out, “Heads up!” Jamie turns just in time to get a faceful of powder. While he sputters and tries to brush the snow off before it melts and dribbles icewater all down his front, the winter spirit takes off, his laughter soaring overhead._

_“Jack! No fair!”But he’s laughing too, and the snow packs so nicely, and flies true, and Jack stops dead in midair and spins around, a look of shock on his face._

_Jamie wipes it off with another snowball._

_“Hey! Now who’s not playing fair?”And Jack’s smile is mischievous and the snowball that forms in his hand shouldn’t have any right to look that threatening. “Of course you know that_ this _means war.”_

_And it does. There’s a fort, impossibly tall and turreted, and there are others, their faces never quite visible, but they feel like friends and the way they laugh as they pelt each other with snow is almost musical. The smallest, a little blonde girl, seems so familiar that it’s almost frustrating, but then Jack flies by and strafes them with snowballs again and it’s impossible to stay frustrated when everyone’s having so much fun. When he feels so light and so weightless, like nothing can hold him down and no darkness can encroach on this white world._

_And then a ball of freezing slush hits the exposed skin on the back of his neck, trails of icy water slithering down his collar, and he definitely doesn’t let out a high-pitched shriek at the shock of cold. He spins, to see the blonde girl giggling, the mittened hand clapped over her mouth doing nothing to hide the guilty look in her bright eyes, and he shouts, “Sophie!”_

_and_

_she’s older and her eyes aren’t so bright and her clothes are all black and her mouth is hard and when she opens it her words are little black darts that pierce him in the eyes and the hands and the heart._

_“You need to grow up.”_

_She spins on her heel and storms out of the room (white again, so much white) and some noise behind him makes him turn and_

_brown hair brown eyes blue jacket and a face that doesn’t look right with its wide eyes full of hurt not awe and its mouth twisted not in a grin but a grimace_

_He’s looking at himself._

_His doppelganger’s eyes fix on him and the hurt turns to horror. Jamie finds he’s rooted to the spot, not so much incapable of moving as incapable of even thinking of moving. It feels a little like something has jolted out of place in his brain, something small but vital, and left him wordless and motionless. From the way his twin freezes, Jamie gets the feeling that he feels exactly the same._

_The other recovers first. Even though Jamie knows he’s looking at his own face, it’s surprising to hear his own voice coming out of someone else’s mouth. “Who are you?!”_

_He doesn’t really know how to respond. “Jamie. Jamie Bennett.”_

_His doppelganger shakes his head. “No. No, you can’t be. This is a trick. A nightmare!” he all but shouts, and there’s a desperate hope in his eyes._

_“I think,” Jamie says, looking around, “you might be right.”_

_“You’re_ not _me,” his twin says, and Jamie can’t help but agree._

_“Who was that?” he asks._

_“See? You don’t even recognize Sophie. You’re not me. You can’t be me.” He sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than anyone else._

_“Sophie?”_

_“Your_ sister _? No. You’re not – She’s_ my _sister.” And every hint of fear from his counterpart vanishes under anger when he says, “And I swear, if you drag her into this, if you do anything to hurt her -”_

_Jamie holds up both hands. “I won’t.”_

_“How do I know that?”_

_Because she’s my sister too, he wants to say, but it isn’t quite true. He doesn’t recognize her, not beyond the knowledge that he_ should, _and all he feels towards her is that same faint pulse of insistent familiarity, a muffled but protective warmth that could really be anything. “Because this isn’t_ her _nightmare.”_

_His twin is quiet, and Jamie looks around. He can’t read any of the posters or signs dotted around; they’re all covered in writing, but it shifts and dances into meaningless squiggles when he tries. Something’s beeping steadily in the background, and a bed dominates the small room, its sheets white and mounded like a snowdrift, the charts hanging from the footrail covered in curves and spikes of black ink. “Where are we?” he asks, and his twin snorts._

_“You don’t know that either? You’re a pretty poor copy.” His voice loses both volume and strength, his shoulders sloping when he says, “We’re at the hospital.”_

_“Why -” Jamie starts, but out of nowhere his throat closes and his voice breaks into nothingness. Suddenly, for no reason that he can understand, he feels like bursting into tears._

_“Look,” his doppelganger says, and the anger’s coming back, the same anger as when he stood up for Sophie. “I don’t know what you are, but you can go back to Pitch and tell him that whatever he thinks he’s doing, it’s not going to work. I won’t -”_

_His voice turns fuzzy, suddenly, like a radio tuned off-station, and the ceiling is peeling away, the corners of the room disappearing into shadow, and Pitch’s voice says in his ear, “_ I think that’s enough.”

And then there’s nothing left of the white room, just a vast and airy darkness marked by the occasional elegant pillar reaching up into nothingness.

“What _was_ that?” Jamie asks, once his voice starts cooperating again, and Pitch’s smile is a silver gash against the dark.

“And here I thought you were a quick learner.”

“A nightmare?” Jamie asks. “But…” He stops, unsure of what he was going to argue in the first place.

“It felt so real?” Pitch sighs, and there’s a bitter edge to his voice when he says, “Unfortunately, you can’t always trust a nightmare.”

Before Jamie can argue that it didn’t feel so much _real_ as _familiar_ , a patch of darker shadow resolves itself into the shape of the Nightmare King, standing a few feet away and examining the pillars with interest. “Especially not if you’ve used dreamsand to make it. What did you do to annoy Sanderson enough to knock you out?”

Jamie assumes that by ‘Sanderson’, Pitch means the little Sandman. “I didn’t. I was tired, and he offered to give me sweet dreams.” For the first time, it occurs to him that the offer might have been made in order to prevent exactly this conversation.

“Tired?” There’s a rustle as Pitch swirls out of view, and then he’s _there_ , right in front of Jamie, just this side of too close for comfort. “You look utterly exhausted.” His eyes widen, and there’s an undercurrent of barely-controlled rage when he says, flatly, “They’re starving you.”

“What? No, I -” Jamie pauses to think, realizes he hasn’t actually been hungry once since waking. “I got hot chocolate?” he offers weakly.

“You know what I meant.”

Jamie doesn’t. And then, the shadows shift and he _does_. A flicker of memory – towering over Jack and North, the way Jack had jumped at the sight of the winged nightmare, the thrilling _power_ of -

\- _the way Jack looked at him_ –

Jamie shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

Pitch draws back, and when he speaks again his voice is back to its usual tone of faint amusement. “Oh, of course you are. You’re not dropping from exhaustion or -” he pauses, looking off to the right as if reading a sign that Jamie can’t see, and then turns back with a shark-toothed smile. “Dispelled by moonlight? I haven’t been that weak in centuries. I wasn’t even that weak after you and your precious Guardians beat me down. But of course, you know exactly what you’re doing.” He waves a hand dismissively, beginning to fade back into the dark. “I’m sure you don’t need _my_ help.”

“No!” Jamie nearly shouts. “I didn’t mean -” He stops, and tries to fight down the rising panic that whispers _alone alone aloneinthedark_. “I’m sorry.”

“Really.” The look Jamie gets in return is like being put on trial, but at least Pitch isn’t leaving. “You’re still trying to impress them, aren’t you? Even though they’re not here. Even though they can’t help you.” He slips backwards into the dark, and Jamie takes a stumbling, too-quick step forward, only to hear Pitch’s voice from behind him, low and sad and somehow almost a perfect mockery of the moon’s disappointment. “Even when it’s their fault that you’re here at all.”

Jamie doesn’t turn around, partly because he knows he won’t see anything but the dark, partly because his feet feel rooted to the spot. “What?” he manages, feeling sideswiped. “But – I thought you -”

“They still haven’t told you anything, then.”

“ _Anything about what?_ ” And this time, Jamie does spin, even though he knows it won’t do him any good. He gets a glimpse of Pitch’s shadow, impossibly tall and black, flickering from pillar to pillar, before it vanishes. “What _happened_? Why am I – what did you do to me? _Why_?”

“Why?” echoes around the dark, until it’s impossible to pinpoint the source. The dark seems to close in, and Jamie takes a step backwards, only to smack into something solid. Arms wind around him, half embrace and half imprisonment, and suddenly the terror and the anger are draining out of him, leaving only a bone-deep weariness.

Pitch’s voice is almost kind when he whispers, “Why, because you asked me to.”


	9. Chapter 9

It takes Jamie’s brain a moment to catch up to his ears. “I what?”

 “Well. I did offer. But you practically begged for me to take you away. All I did was suggest a…more _permanent_ method.”

Jamie shakes his head, pushing away from Pitch. Something isn’t right here. “I thought I hated you. I thought _you_ hated _me_.”

“Hate you?” The smile he gets in return is indulgent, the kind of look one might give a favoured but not very intelligent pet. “Now, what gave you that idea?”

Jamie stops, the first hot prickles of embarrassment stinging his cheeks. “I don’t know, maybe the part where you tried to kill me and I thwarted your plan for world domination?”

“Oh, yes.” Pitch’s upper lip curls, turning the smile into a snarl. He huffs angrily, and runs a hand through his hair, composing himself again. “But really, you give yourself far too much credit. What’s one child who wouldn’t stop believing compared to the Guardians’ power? You were never really anything more than a minor annoyance.”

Jamie has a feeling that this isn’t quite how the story went, but he can’t seem to recall why. All he can remember right now is Jack shooting crackling blue bolts at Jamie’s shadow puppet, and _that_ just makes him think of shadows and dark and the sweet sharp scent of terror, and he’s just _so_ tired.

“That wasn’t how Jack told it,” he tries, anyway, dully, and is rewarded with a pitying look and a dull throb of pain in the back of his head.

“And you believe everything Jack Frost tells you?”

That hurts, too, but not his head.  

“No,” Jamie finally admits, quietly, reluctantly. It stings, but he knows it’s the truth. He doesn’t think that Jack has ever told him an outright _lie,_ exactly, but there’s definitely something that not just Jack, but all of them have been keeping from him.

“Oh, good. Here I was starting to wonder if you’d lost all your critical thinking skills along with your memory.” Pitch starts to pace again, and Jamie wonders if he’s even capable of standing still for more than five minutes. He can’t help a flicker of resentment, even though it’s followed quickly by another pulse of muffled pain right where his spine meets his skull.

“ _You_ haven’t exactly told me anything, either,” Jamie snaps, and there’s an angry hiss from the dark that presses against him.

Pitch stops, almost midstep, and turns to face Jamie, who shrinks back into the protective cover of the shadows. For a long moment, neither of them says a word, Jamie growing increasingly nervous in the face of the look he’s getting. It isn’t so much that Pitch is angry, Jamie almost expected him to be angry. It’s that he _isn’t_. Instead, he almost looks delighted, studying Jamie like something small and unexpected and rare.  At first, Jamie avoids meeting Pitch’s eyes, tries to dissolve into the dark, but after an increasingly uncomfortable few seconds, he gives up on trying to disappear and instead stares back at the Nightmare King defiantly.

The smile he gets in return is more than worth it.

“Still so stubborn,” Pitch says, and he sounds just this side of impressed. The grin he turns to Jamie is sincere and pleased, and somehow the words that would otherwise have seemed like an insult sound like the highest praise. “It’s always been your most annoying trait. But then, I suppose I can’t complain, since it was your insistence on stubbornly believing even in the face of all the evidence that kept me going after that particular humiliating incident.”

“I _what_?”

Pitch shakes his head. “You thought you were only the last child to believe in the _Guardians_? Oh, no. Even after they destroyed the last of my nightmares, even after the brats stopped sleeping with one eye open for something in the shadows, I still had _one_ stubborn believer worried that I might crawl back out from under the bed.” His smile vanishes, and Jamie’s almost afraid to ask any more questions, even though he’s closer to getting the answers he really wants than he’s ever been before. “And you developed _such_ a deep and delicious fear of losing those you cared about, of not being able to protect them, too.”

Well, that explains that. “But why would you…why did you offer, if I was just…” What had he said? “A minor annoyance? Why would you _care_?”

The shifting shadows go still, and everything is absolutely silent for the space of a few long seconds. Then Pitch says, “You aren’t the only one who was alone.” There’s something flat and final in his voice.

“Alone?” The word settles like a lead weight onto Jamie’s chest. He wants to push it off, argue it away. He isn’t _alone,_ and he _wasn’t_ alone until he wound up in the dark. He had friends, even if he can’t remember them. He _has_ friends. People who care about him. But the weight feels familiar in a way that those claims of friendship don’t, an ache that sinks into his bones and settles in as if it belongs there.

“Of course, I couldn’t get close so long as the Guardians were still hanging about making nuisances of themselves,” Pitch continues, his light tone covering barely-concealed bitterness as he begins to pace again. Jamie isn’t sure what he’s feeling – this is what he wants to know, and yet, now that it’s coming out at last, he’s gripped with a bitter, gnawing certainty that he isn’t going to like what he’s about to hear. “But afterwards – oh, at first it was almost poetic, seeing how they rewarded your belief, but I would have had to be far more heartless than I am not to have felt even a little sympathy.”

“What – what do you mean?” Jamie asks, stuttering over the first word and swallowing hard, trying to wrestle down the tendrils of cold creeping dread that threaten to choke him. “What happened?”

“I’m not surprised they didn’t tell you, really. They’re the Guardians of _Childhood_. And children, regrettably, grow up.”

_You need to grow up._

Jamie starts, but it’s only Sophie’s voice, a disembodied whisper that nevertheless manages to echo throughout the dark vastness.

“I -” he starts, but the question dies in his throat. “But – I wouldn’t have stopped believing -” Would he?

_We do not know what Jamie would or would not do._

“Why not? All of your friends did. And didn’t _they_ just vanish when they realized you still thought it had all been real?” Pitch doesn’t seem to have heard the strangely-echoing whispers. “But all that belief didn’t matter in the end, did it?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Jamie snaps. He wants to protest, this isn’t right, it’s twisted somehow, he’s _sure._ He has the very strong feeling that there has to be more to the story, but memories are still eluding him, the weight of that word _alone_ is slowly suffocating him, and the growing dull throb in the back of his head is making it harder and harder to think straight.

“They left you,” Pitch says, soft and sad, close enough to his ear that Jamie feels a gust of breath against the back of his neck. The shiver that runs down his spine isn’t entirely because of the cool air. “They care about children, after all, not sixteen-year-old boys with sick mothers and no friends. They left you alone, let you spend too many nights awake begging for something, anything, to prove your faith wasn’t misplaced, that someone cared, that there was still hope, still something _good_ in the world…and none of it mattered, because she _died_ and they left you _alone_.”

It’s like he’s just been _stabbed_. The feeling is sharp and sudden, twisting painfully in his chest and knocking the breath out of him.

“Sophie?” he manages, though it’s barely more than a breath. It’s all already happened, it’s not like he can change anything, and he doesn’t even really remember the girl, but that means nothing to the fear that scrabbles icy claws at his heart.

He can’t see Pitch smile in the dark, but it’s obvious in his voice. “Oh, don’t worry, she’s safe. Safe and happy with her new family,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. “A shame that you two had to be split up, but then, who wouldn’t want such a sweet little girl?” A hand rests on his shoulder, and Pitch practically whispers into his ear, “And who would want her crazy brother?”

“Split…?” Jamie echoes, dully. There’s a sick ache building in the pit of his stomach, like he’s swallowed something heavy and cold, and he can’t seem to bring himself to move.

“Oh yes. As I recall, that was the last straw for you. Not that that was any surprise. What did you lose? Your father, your friends, the Guardians, your mother…and finally your sister too?” There’s something like sympathy in Pitch’s voice, and the hand on Jamie’s shoulder squeezes lightly, reassuringly, when he says, “I must have been the only one who _didn’t_ leave you.”

This is _wrong_ , but Jamie _can’t_ remember and just trying is sending firework-blooms of pain through his head. There’s something, clearer and fresher in what remains of his memory than the faint vague warmth that comes with thinking of Sophie, something small and golden and _important_ , but grasping after it send a spike of pain stabbing through the back of his skull and Jamie finally stops trying.

“They said they were my friends,” he manages, and his voice sounds dull and defeated even to his own ears.

“Of course they did.”

“They said they wanted to help me.”

“If they really wanted to help you, they wouldn’t be letting you starve.” Pitch’s long fingers gently stroke Jamie’s hair, and the headache fades, just enough that Jamie can think again. “It isn’t _you_ the Guardians care about. It’s their precious Last Light. They don’t want _you_. They want a little boy who doesn’t even exist anymore.”

And Jamie really wishes he could argue with this, but it just makes too much sense for him to even bother trying. The stabbing pains in his head have retreated, and it’s almost too easy to remember now, every disappointed or disapproving look, every word left ominously unsaid or hastily bit back, every distrustful glance…

“As soon as they realise that, they’ll abandon you again,” Pitch continues, carding fingers through Jamie’s hair, and his voice shouldn’t be allowed to sound so soothing when it’s saying such painful things. Jamie leans back, into the touch, and wonders if it’s possible to fall asleep in a nightmare. “They won’t want you, won’t want a spirit of fear tainting their precious wonder and hope and memories and dreams. They’ll cast you out, without a second thought or a moment’s remorse.”

And Jamie has the faintest feeling that there’s something he should be saying, some argument he should be making, but what would be the point? Pitch is right. Of course Pitch is right.

“And when they do…” The hand stroking Jamie’s hair stops, and Jamie half-turns, looking up. The Nightmare King smiles, and it’s entirely unlike any smile Jamie’s seen him give until now. It’s softer, less mocking somehow, and Jamie feels a startling bloom of warmth at the sight. “I'll be here.”

Jamie only just has time to smile back before the dream (the _nightmare_ ) abruptly shatters.

He jumps up at the sudden shock of awareness, and discovers that he’s wound up under the bed again by slamming face-first into the bedframe.  Clutching his aching nose, Jamie tries to figure out what woke him. It doesn’t take long. There’s a scent, sharp and metallic and rich and strong and heady, pouring through the shadows in waves and sending little thrills of energy fireworking up and down Jamie’s spine. It takes him a moment to sort out its meaning, untangle it from the anticipation and hunger it sparks off in the back of his brain, but when he does the answer seems almost painfully obvious.

Somewhere in the workshop, someone is _terrified_.


	10. Chapter 10

Jamie only gets to bask in the feeling of pure, unbridled terror for a few short moments before it begins to warp, slipping away into anger and out of his grasp. The loss _stings_ , a sudden sharp stab where his heart should be, and before he even knows it he's decided he wants it _back_.

There's something dark and glittering scattered about on the floor around him, something that looks and feels like the dreamsand but black as a moonless night, its soaring feeling of infinite possibility turned to a heavy, inexplicable menace. This has to be what's left of the shattered nightmare, and with just a little coaxing it swirls up and around his hands, whispering the rattle of wind in bare treetops and soft footfalls following just out of sight. He lets it curl around his arms, settling under his sleeves like a secret, before turning his attention back to the trail of quickly-vanishing fear.

He still doesn't know the workshop well enough to find his way through its halls and rooms to the source. Luckily, he doesn't have to. The shadows under the bed swallow him up greedily, and when he sees the light again he's looking out into an unfamiliar room, perfectly circular, the walls lined completely with bookshelves which are full almost to overflowing. Part of the reason that the room feels much smaller than it truly is is the preponderance of books; the other is the people. In this already-crowded room, even five is enough to comfortably fill the space. It _looks_ like it should be cozy, but the air is a soup of worry and apprehension.

He doesn't recognize the six-foot-tall rabbit who's shouting at the apparently unruffled North, but he doesn't have to. He recognizes the fear that the stranger's anger is rooted in, potent and ancient and recently unearthed. The rabbit is trying to claw it back under control and _no that won't do that won't do at ALL._

It wouldn't take too much of a push at this point, to tip the balance from rage back into terror. It's there, simmering just under the shouts and the bluster, a fear of loss that blooms into a fear of failing and of helplessness, an old and deeply-rooted phobia that speaks from unfathomably long experience. Jamie has to wonder just how many families this creature has lost, that he's so scared of losing this one.

He slips shadow-thin behind Tooth, whose jewel-bright plumage fluffs up seemingly unconsciously at his passing, and Sandy, who looks around as though he's heard something. He couldn't have, shadows don't actually make a sound, but Jamie still freezes on the spot until the little man shakes his golden head and stops staring searchingly at the patches of dark between the bookshelves.

Neither the rabbit nor North seems to have noticed anything amiss, too wrapped up in whatever they're arguing about to notice a shadow moving around without anything to cast it.

"I knew ya were soft-hearted, but have ya gone soft in the head, too? Ya _invited_ it _in_?"

North waves a hand dismissively. "Is all under control! Jamie has been excellent houseguest -"

" _Not_ the point. Pitch finally went through with it and made 'imself a Fearling Prince, _and you invited it in_."

Jamie's not prepared for the sudden rush of fright from Tooth, the almost resigned bloom of dread from Sandy. The feeling is heady and rich, spiked with just enough urgency to set off the almost mellow layers of deep and long-held worry. After days of nothing but faint anxiety and the occasional stab of panic, it's almost intoxicating.

"But Pitch hasn't made anyone into a Fearling since the Dark Ages!" Tooth's fluttering picks up speed as she looks nervously from the rabbit, to North, to Sandy. "I thought he _couldn't_ anymore, not after we beat him back into the centre of the earth. Wasn't that why he tried turning Sandy's dreamsand into nightmares?" She turns to Sandy for confirmation, and the little golden man shrugs, the sand above his head swirling into a clock, out of which springs a tiny golden bird, its mouth opening in a silent cuckoo.

The rabbit makes a noise halfway between a snort and a laugh. "Yeah, he's got kangaroos loose in the top paddock and no mistake." He doesn't sound amused in the slightest. "But the nightmares didn't get 'im very far, did they? And now it looks like he's goin' back to what works."

"If Pitch is rebuilding his army -" Tooth starts, and her hands flick down to her hips, where those wicked golden swords had hung.

"Then every child is in danger," North finishes, nodding, and he seems awfully unperturbed. "This is why I put out call. This time, we have upper hand. _This_ time, we will not fall into trap!"

"Little late for that," the rabbit snaps, and at least _he's_ still on edge. "Getting us all together worked last time, what's to say he hasn't done it again? Seems awfully convenient that this kid just dropped right into our laps -"

"It's my fault, okay?"

Jamie isn't the only one who starts at the sudden outburst. He'd almost forgotten Jack was there, curled up perched on the back of an armchair with his hood up, as if he wants to disappear.

"Jack, that's not -" Tooth starts, reaching out, but Jack cuts her off with an angry sweep of his staff.

"Don't say that. I caused this, and we all know it." He sighs, and the scowl that mars his face softens slightly. "Don't get mad at North. I'm the one who found Jamie, it was my idea to come to you guys…" His shoulders slump, and he stares down at his bare feet when he mutters, "I couldn't just leave him alone."

It's a _lie_ , it's a blatant and bald-faced _lie_ , Jack already left him once without a moment's regret and Jamie _hates_ that he doesn't hate him for it. Hates that he still just wants to make Jack smile again.

Suddenly everything is sharp-edged and simple. Enough waiting. Enough hoping. Enough distrust, enough shame. After what they did, they have no right to be disappointed in him, no right to expect _anything_ from him, and _they will SCREAM for him_ –

The hiss of fleeing shadows is all the warning he gets before a burst of dreamsand explodes, bright and burning, against the patch of deeper dark Jamie's standing in. Eyes stinging, he stumbles out into the room, and before he can move, there's tendrils of dreamsand wrapped around his wrists. He snarls, trying to pull free, but the restraints hold and Sandy's glare really shouldn't look this intimidating. Jamie tries to step backwards, back into the dark, but before he can move the rabbit grabs him by the shoulder and slams him up against the bookshelf. All of the air is knocked from his lungs in one long 'oof!', and the books above his head rattle ominously.

"What th' hell d'ya think _you're_ doing?" the rabbit demands, voice low and threatening. Jamie struggles to pull in a breath, pushing back the insistent shadows pulling at his ankles, his sleeves. Starting a fight now will only make things worse – although, looking around at the others' expressions, it's a little hard to imagine how it could _get_ any worse.

He can't look at Jack. Can't bear to see that betrayal in his eyes.

"Let go," Jamie snaps, or tries to. It comes out as more of a wheeze, and he tries, unsuccessfully, to wriggle free of the furry arm holding him pinned against the bookshelf. One of the shelves is digging into the small of his back, but at least the books overhead have stopped threatening to fall on him.

"Not a chance," the rabbit growls, eyes narrowing. "Why were ya skulking around? What're you and your master plotting?"

"I'm not plotting anything! And I don't have a _master_." Jamie squirms, to no avail, feeling the first flickers of red-hot rage. "Let me _go._ "

"What, and let ya run around spying on us? You're not going anywhere." The fearful anger that rolls off of the rabbit is almost overwhelming and before he really knows he's going to, Jamie's already said it.

"You're not _scared_ , are you?"

The arm pinning him in place tenses, and the rabbit says, "What?"

Jamie knows he's struck a nerve, but it's not enough to stop him. "You're not scared that it might already be too late?" That gets him a growl, and another rush of thinly-veiled terror, and it's _not enough_. "That there's nothing you can do and this time, you're going to lose them, just like you lost everybody else?"

He realizes he's gone too far at the same time as the rabbit pulls back his other arm, paw curled into a fist. Jamie flinches, shuts his eyes, braces for the blow that he knows he won't be able to dodge.

It doesn't come.

"Bunny!" Jack's voice shouts, and Jamie risks opening his eyes again, to see the rabbit deflate, lowering his raised arm. Jack leaps off the armchair and hurries forward, but the rabbit shoots him a look and his light steps falter, stop dead.

The arm pinning Jamie to the bookshelf relaxes, and the rabbit pushes him away, shaking his head. Jamie stumbles, off-balance, and hits the floor hard in a tangle of limbs and shadows. He tries to scramble back to his feet, only to be pulled up short – he'd almost forgotten about the dreamsand bonds on his wrists. The look Sandy gives him is steely, and just a little sad, and Jamie stops struggling against the restraints.

The rabbit's – Bunny's – voice is oddly gentle when he says, "This ain't your mate, Frostbite. Jamie's gone."

_They want a little boy who doesn't even exist anymore._

Jack only meets Jamie's eyes for a second, before turning back to the rabbit. The way he leans on his staff is too casual, and his smile looks as forced as the easy cheer in his voice sounds. "What, and _you_ of all people are saying there isn't any hope?" His smile dips, and vanishes, in the face of the rabbit's seriousness.

"Yeah," the rabbit says, gruffly, and it's almost an apology.

"Now, let us not be having any of this!" North booms, clapping the rabbit on the shoulder with such exuberance that he stumbles forward. "Where there is belief, there is hope, da?"

Jamie tunes out the ensuing argument. He's heard more than enough.

The nightmare sand coiled under his sleeves swirls into action with little more than a thought, curling around the tendrils the Sandman wrapped around his wrists and turning them dark. By the time Sandy catches on, the cuffs are corrupted enough for Jamie to break them open. That isn't going to convince anyone that he's trustworthy, but somehow he can't bring himself to care.

The shadows, at least, are happy to have him.

…

"Jamie?"

The sound of Jack's voice makes Jamie freeze on the spot, even though he hasn't been moving. In fact, he's been lying curled up under the bed in the guest room, wallowing. If he's totally honest with himself, he's only still in the workshop because he's been hoping someone – no, not just _someone_ – would come looking. Now that Jack's here, though, it seems like the stupidest thing Jamie could possibly have hoped for. Maybe if he doesn't say anything, doesn't move, Jack won't notice that he's here, and go away.

"Hey, I know you're here. Enough with the silent treatment." Jack's voice draws closer to the bed, his feet padding softly against the hardwood. "It always gets darker and creepier in here when you're lurking under the bed, so don't even try to pretend you're not down there."

Apparently not. Jamie sighs, rolling over only to find himself face-to-face with the winter spirit. Jack's smile looks a little strained, but it's there, and bright, and doesn't so much as waver when he meets Jamie's eyes. "Has anyone ever mentioned that only seeing a pair of eyes glowing in the dark is a little unnerving?" Jack asks, his tone light and teasing, and Jamie's ears burn. He hadn't even noticed he'd let himself dissolve into the shadows like that.

"Sorry," he mumbles, and he's not even sure for what, the creepy eyes or the eavesdropping or his entire existence.

"It's okay," Jack answers, and his smile is just a little sad. " _I'm_ sorry. Things got way out of hand in the library."

Jamie shifts forward a little, out of the dark. "I shouldn't've been there. I just -" He stops cold. There's really no way to explain that won't make Jack look at him like he's done something unforgivable.

Jack waves a hand, a move that's made a little more difficult by the fact that he's lying on his stomach. "Not your fault. We shouldn't've just abandoned you up here." He blows out a breath, a puff of cold air that ghosts across Jamie's nose with the sharp, familiar smell of snow. "I'm sorry. I really am. Don't listen to anything Bunny says, _please_."

Jamie knows he shouldn't believe this. He's seen for himself how they really feel. But – this is _Jack_. Jack, who saved him from the dark. Jack, who _matters_ , even if Jamie isn't really sure why. Jack, who cares.

And he lets himself hope, just for a moment, that Jack also understands.

"North's found a couple of spells that could help, and – just – it's not hopeless, Jamie. You have to believe in me." Jack's smile is almost blinding against the dark. "We'll figure it out, undo whatever Pitch did. We'll fix this."

It feels like something inside of him shatters into a million jagged pieces.

"I don't need _fixing_ ," Jamie snaps. It should have been menacing, terrifying, and would have been, if his voice hadn't choked off in something painfully like a sob on the last word. Jack's smile vanishes instantly, eyes widening with gathering horror.

"No – I didn't mean -"

The rest of Jack's sentence goes unheard. Jamie lets the dark swallow him up again, not daring to look back.

This time, when the shadows beg him to come back down to the place where no light goes, he listens.


	11. Chapter 11

The dark is all-consuming, blacker than night and colder than winter.

It takes only a few seconds to pass through it, but, for the first time, the smothering dark and the deep-space chill feels like coming home. He’s only just begun to wonder how he knows what the cold of space feels like when he stumbles out in a swirl of shadow and sensation comes rushing back.

At first, he almost thinks he’s back in a nightmare. There’s nothing but featureless blackness all around, marked only by the occasional elegant pillar rising up into nothingness. The silence has the echoing quality of huge, open spaces.

This dark is friendly, comforting, pressing against him like a pet against a much-loved owner. Shadows rush forward to meet him, nearly sweeping him off his feet. They don’t speak, exactly, but their whispers are excited and amiable even if they aren’t quite words. He lets them curl up against him, buffeting and pulling him forward into the dark between the pillars. This would have been terrifying, he remembers vaguely, even just a few days ago. Somehow, Jamie can’t quite remember why.

No, he’s not afraid of the dark. Not anymore.

He’s half-expecting to find himself, once again, alone in impenetrable gloom, but instead, he emerges on a staircase, arching high over a cavernous chamber dotted with outcroppings of rock and massive stalagmites jutting upwards through decaying architecture. It isn’t truly cold down here, but it isn’t warm either, and he gathers his cloak a little closer around his shoulders. The ceiling is hung with jagged cages fashioned of some black metal that he doesn’t recognize, creaking and clanking softly as they sway in a nearly-nonexistent breeze. The whole scene is lit by shafts of cold white light, beaming down from no discernible source and casting more shadows than they illuminate. The overall effect is both disconcerting and disorienting, like nothing he’s ever seen before, and yet, it all feels oddly _right_. Like he just fits here, in a way he didn’t in the workshop. He doesn’t move for a long moment, just staring and trying to take everything in. 

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

This time, Jamie doesn’t spin at the sound of Pitch’s voice from behind him. The Nightmare King wouldn’t be there anyway. “This is where you live?”

“Where _we_ live.” Pitch’s voice loses the echo of shadow-travel, and Jamie turns to face him. “Welcome home.” He gestures expansively, encompassing the whole of the cavernous space, his smile proud and proprietary, and Jamie can’t help a small smile of his own.

“I must admit, I wasn’t expecting you back quite so soon,” Pitch adds, and the smile drops off of Jamie’s face.

“You were right,” he says, looking out at the forest of cages, avoiding Pitch’s eyes. “They don’t -” He stops, uncomfortable under the mild, thoughtful smile that Pitch turns on him. The words taste bitter on his tongue, and sound petty and ungrateful even in his own head. But still - “You were right. About everything.”

“I did try to warn you.”

“I know. I should have listened, I -”

Pitch cuts him off with a sympathetic noise. “It’s not as though there was anything you could have done to change things. After all, it’s not anything you’ve _done_ that they hate you for, that they can’t accept. It’s just what you _are_.”

Jamie bites his lower lip, tries to swallow down the memory of his disastrous last encounter with the Guardians. He can think of a few thousand things he could have done differently, starting with waking up in the first place. But the thought of the library reminds him of something, and he grabs onto it eagerly, glad to have something else to talk about. “What’s a fearling?”

Pitch raises a brow. “I haven’t heard _that_ word in a very long time.”

“The rabbit called me one. And Tooth said you had an army, and they were all scared you might try to build it up again…?”

Pitch’s laugh is sudden and unexpected, echoing through the caverns. “Don’t tell me that they actually think _that’s_ what I’m up to? Oh, I’d be flattered, if it weren’t just proof that the Guardians are still as unimaginative and shortsighted as they’ve always been.” He shakes his head, his voice turning bitter. “I _couldn’t_ rebuild my fearling army, not now. They made very sure of that. Even making you over almost took too much out of me.” He spits the last sentence as though it burns his mouth.

“What _are_ fearlings, though?” Jamie presses.

“Shadows, mostly, and fear. And hunger. What little’s left of the children they used to be.” The sneer that crosses Pitch’s face is derisive and vanishes almost as quickly as it appears. “Frankly, I’m embarrassed for the rabbit if he honestly can’t tell _you_ from those single-minded little monsters.”

“Then I’m not -”

“Oh, _no_.” Pitch reaches out, catching Jamie’s chin in a surprisingly firm grip and lifting his head up so that Jamie meets his eyes. “No, you are so much more. Some of my best work, I must say.” His smile is as proud and proprietary as when he was showing off his lair, but there’s something soft in his eyes. His voice, too, has lost its edge when he says, “My own little Nightmare Prince.”

“I’m not _little_ ,” Jamie complains, but he doesn’t pull away. The smile that steals across his face and into his voice sort of undercuts his indignation.

“Of course not.” And just like that, the undercurrent of amusement returns to both Pitch’s voice and his smile. He lets go of Jamie’s jaw, brushing his thumb affectionately over Jamie’s cheek before he withdraws. “You are not a child, and you don’t deserve to be treated like one. Kept in ignorance, handled with kid gloves…” His voice drops into something almost like a hiss. “Treated like you’re fragile – or about to explode?”

Jamie looks down at his feet, wishing he knew how Pitch seems able to reach straight into his memory and pull out every angry, shameful thought. The stairs they’re standing on are cracked and crumbling in places, dark gray stone wearing away under the pressure of feet and darkness and immeasurable time.  

“Of course, you have such a lot to learn,” Pitch continues, his robe swishing as he walks forward, down the stairs past Jamie. “But I intend to _teach_ you, rather than lock you away and hope you never wonder what you’re missing.”

Jamie looks up at that. “Teach me what?”

“Anything you want to know.” Pitch pauses, glancing back over his shoulder, and his smile is surprisingly bright and triumphant against the dark. “But I thought we could start with spreading nightmares.”

…

The shadows spit him out into a warmer, closer dark. For a second, Jamie isn’t sure which way is up, and it takes him a moment to regain his bearings.

He’s in a child’s bedroom, that much is clear from the brightly-coloured polka dots scattered along the top of the walls, the cheerful daisies printed on the drapes, the half-sized table and chairs set for a tea party. The bed against the far wall is occupied, a small girl curled up under the bedspread clutching a stuffed bear and smiling in her sleep. Her coppery hair shimmers under the glow of the golden dreamsand swirling above her head. The dim light it casts is neither as stark as the silver illumination underground nor as brilliant as the inside of the workshop, filling the small room with a soft, friendly glow.

Jamie steps clear of the patch of darker shadow behind the open door, wondering as he does what, exactly, he’s supposed to do. He feels as though he’s trespassing, which he guesses he _is_. Even if, as Pitch assured him, no one will see him, it still feels vaguely uncomfortable to be standing here in someone else’s bedroom, amid someone else’s stuff. One of the girl’s stuffed animals is facing towards him, and Jamie could swear he sees accusation in its beady plastic eyes.

“Getting cold feet?”

There’s a faint, slithering sound, like silk on silk, and Pitch steps out of the shadowy recesses of the girl’s closet. Jamie shakes his head, shuffling sideways to avoid the stuffed tiger’s glare.

“What am I supposed to _do_?”

Pitch blinks. “Just the same thing you did at the Pole. She’s having a pleasant dream.” His long fingers trace a formless trail through the dark. “Change that.”

Jamie is about to protest that he doesn’t really know _how_ , that he’s only ever done it without thinking, and isn’t he supposed to be _learning_ here, anyway? But he stops before he even says a word, because the dreamsand has swirled into a golden figure swooping and soaring over an indistinct landscape, and its loops and dives are almost hypnotic. His fingers almost itch with the urge to touch, to see if it’s as warm and as incongruously soft as it looks.

And the sand does slide over his fingers like water, smooth as glass, but it’s so bright it _stings_ and he feels a twinge of something he can’t quite name. A trail of black spirals out through the soaring dream, glittering darkly in shades of midnight where the light from the uncorrupted sand strikes it. In seconds, the dream has been consumed, leaving the lonely golden figure stranded in a storm of black.

The girl’s smile vanishes, cold dread coiling out from her nightmare in lazy ripples, and she curls closer around her stuffed bear.

“Not bad,” Pitch says appreciatively, and Jamie starts. He’d almost forgotten there was anyone other than himself and the small girl in the room. “But I think you’ve missed a spot.” Pitch reaches out, and another figure forms out of the swirling black sand, half-formed and melting even as it reaches out to touch and tarnish the still-golden figure.

The rush of fear that floods from the girl hits Jamie like a snowball to the face, cold and sharp and _fantastic_. This isn’t like the rabbit’s curdled anger or North’s restless anxiety or Jack’s resigned worry. This is fear uncomplicated by tangled emotions, pure and clear and heady. Jamie feels like he’s really awake for the first time, alive and electrified, as though he might let off sparks if he moves. His laugh is sudden and surprised, and the girl whimpers uneasily in her sleep.

The feeling doesn’t last long. Jamie comes down quickly as the nightmare spins itself out, leaving him oddly hollow. He glances down at the girl, once again peacefully asleep, and an unfamiliar rage coils hot and dark in his chest. He wants to shake her, wake her, for daring to take away his beautiful nightmare. Wants to hear her _scream_.

When Pitch touches his shoulder he nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Well?” the Nightmare King asks, and the anger vanishes like it was never there at all. Jamie grins, and for half a second thinks he must look like the boy on his tooth box, with his huge, awestruck smile.

“Can we do it again?”


	12. Chapter 12

They follow midnight around the globe, chasing the small hours of the night for Jamie doesn’t really know how long. It might only be the span of a single day, it might be a week or a month or even a year. He has no way to mark the passage of time; he never sleeps, never sees the sun. He can’t really bring himself to mind, though, not when the ever-moving midnight is so full of new and strange and exciting things, new and unfamiliar terrors to be tasted.

They’re in Perth when one of Jamie’s nightmares is finally strong enough to keep its form, instead of collapsing into swirls of blackened dreamsand. She isn’t very large, a little black horse only about as long as his forearm, but she’s friendly and follows him around like a puppy. Jamie’s delighted; Pitch, less so.

“They’re not tame,” he warns, as Jamie tries to coax the little nightmare into landing on his shoulder. “That thing will turn on you the instant you show fear.”

Jamie rolls his eyes, but he files away the warning in the back of his mind. After all, Pitch has always been right before. The thought is a bitter one, and Jamie shoves it aside. He’s not going to let anything ruin this for him.

“I don’t know, I think she likes me,” he says, and the little nightmare whickers, butting her head against his cheek affectionately. Jamie gets a flicker of the futile fear of the boy who dreamed his little nightmare, running and running and never getting anywhere. He grins, and strokes the nightmare’s nose with the tip of one finger.

Pitch looks from the nightmare to Jamie. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” When Jamie looks up at him, though, he doesn’t seem displeased. There’s a strange, soft little smile on his narrow face, a smile he quickly hides when he notices that Jamie’s looking.

Jamie smiles back, and his nightmare snorts, nuzzling her head into his shoulder. “Okay, o _kay_ ,” Jamie complains, still grinning. “I haven’t forgotten about you!”

He’s sure he doesn’t just imagine that the nightmare seems smug when she shakes her head. He laughs, and runs his fingers through the sand that trails off of her mane. It’s smooth as glass, as silk, cool in the night breeze, and tiny droplets of unease brush from it as he pets her. For the space of a second, he remembers the crunch of snow between his fingers, the bite of the cold and the faint scratch of ice crystals, but he shakes the sliver of memory off as quickly as he can.

“You need a name,” he tells the nightmare, and her ears perk up, swiveling to face him. He strokes her nose, gauging the look in her golden eyes. “How does Gryphon sound to you?”

The newly-dubbed Gryphon cocks her head to one side, then leans over and nibbles at Jamie’s bangs.

“I suppose it’s too late to tell you not to get attached, then,” Pitch says, with a sigh. “Well, if you’re going to insist on keeping her around, you should at least know how to handle her.”

He leans over, and with a wave of one hand, unravels Gryphon. Her golden eyes are the last to go, blinking shut as she transforms back into a swirl of dark sand. Jamie doesn’t even have time to be upset before the sand nudges his shoulder and he realizes it’s still the same nightmare. Her shape has changed, but that’s all.

“How did you _do_ that?” he asks, and Pitch smirks, letting the sand go to whirl around Jamie’s head and back into the shape of a little black horse. Jamie watches, carefully, before reaching up and brushing his fingers through Gryphon’s trailing mane. He thinks of gathering in shadows, of looping coils of nightmare sand around his wrists, and when he pulls his hand back down a stream of glittering dark follows its trajectory.

Jamie laughs, sets Gryphon’s sand dancing around him, and then around the small room in huge, darkly sparkling arcs. He lets her ruffle the sleeping boy’s hair before he calls her back, pulls her back into shape, snorting and stamping. She backs away when he reaches out to pat her, and it takes a lot of shushing and soothing to make her hold still. He glances back at Pitch, suddenly self-conscious.

“Not bad,” Pitch says, casting an appraising eye over the puff of black glitter that still hovers midair over the sleeping boy’s head. “Of course, there’s so much more you could do, with just a little more imagination. And more nightmares, of course.”

“Is that a challenge?” Jamie asks, jokingly. Pitch only smirks, turning and disappearing back into the dark.

Gryphon snorts, fixing Jamie with a puzzled glare. “Oh yeah, that was a challenge,” he says, half to her and half to himself. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to show him, won’t we?”

…

After Gryphon, it’s easier to bring the nightmares to life, the swell of power from each little terror feeding into the next, and the next. It isn’t long before Gryphon, glutted on pure childish fear, grows large enough to ride. She carries Jamie in and out of gleefully-giggling shadows, through alleys and bedrooms and the vast expanse of the open desert, the herd following them growing in size and numbers  as they ride through the dark.

They catch up with Pitch on the outskirts of Sydney, just for long enough to catch the edge of his laugh, a flicker of shadow. Jamie doesn’t have to urge Gryphon on; she races ahead, chasing shadows, while behind them the nightmares flow like a tide through the streets. For a moment, Jamie forgets everything but the wind that tangles in his hair and whips his cloak out behind him, the whispering rush of speeding dark, somehow all the more ominous for its quietness. Passerby stop, and even though Jamie knows they can’t see what overtakes them, he can feel the uncertainty, the unease, that spreads in his wake. This city no longer belongs to the daylight, the human and mundane. This is no longer their world, and every one of the city’s inhabitants knows it.

Gryphon climbs the Opera House in three huge bounds, settling on the tallest peak. Jamie swings down from Gryphon’s back before she comes to a stop. The harbour is calm and dark, water like a spill of ink against the lights of the city. A smattering of stars twinkle weakly overhead, and for an instant Jamie feels as though he could reach up and snuff them out, one by one.

He laughs a little at the thought, wondering where it came from, and turns to survey his handiwork. The lights are still on, but their glow is distorted, shadows warped, as though seen through water. The unease that followed him is simmering and bubbling up into dread, dark and anxious expectation of something unknown and unknowable. All it needs to boil over, he thinks, is a little push.

He grins up at Gryphon, who snorts and tosses her head. She rears up, kicking her forelegs through midair, and brings them down with a sound of ringing iron and a flurry of darkly-sparkling sand.

The lights go out.

Blackness ripples out from the opera house, spreading lightning-quick through the city, waves of shadow smothering the last source of comfort. For a moment, there isn’t so much as a sound, the sudden and unnatural hush like a bubble about to burst.

Then he hears the first scream.

Ordinarily, a power outage, even one of this size, wouldn’t faze anyone. The might worry, they might wonder, but mostly they’d just grumble and get on with it. But this is not ordinary dark that’s being called down. This is a prehistoric night, primordial darkness, full of half-imagined terrors beyond comprehension. This is a night that belongs to the things stuffed into the closets and under the beds of the human mind, only momentarily held at bay by the brightness of electric light.

And once the screaming starts, it doesn’t stop.

The happy sigh that echoes out of the dark to his left, though, somehow sounds louder than any of the screams. Pitch’s footsteps are whisper-quiet against the opera house roof, and the arm he wraps around Jamie’s shoulders is warm and possessive. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Jamie nods, and leans into the touch. Pitch chuckles, low and dark, and ruffles Jamie’s hair.

“You’ve turned out so much better than I could ever have dreamed,” he says, and his voice almost drips with pride.

In the streets below, glass shatters, and the shriek of a car alarm kicks into life. Jamie frowns, but Pitch doesn’t even seem to have noticed.

“I haven’t seen this many people so afraid since the Dark Ages,” he sighs, absently petting Jamie’s hair. Somewhere in the dark, a siren begins to wail. Pitch pauses, and Jamie wonders if he, too, can feel the way that pure, awed terror is abruptly turning sour. But Pitch seems too taken by some idea to pay any attention to the way the shattering sounds of breaking windows are growing in frequency.

“We could bring them back,” Pitch says, as though it’s just occurred to him, but Jamie can tell by the gleam of his eye and the twist of his smile that he’s been considering this for a long, _long_ time.

“What?” Jamie asks, feeling dizzy and distracted. The screams are turning to shouts. Off in the distance, there’s a growing orange flicker that must be fire, and the sirens are growing louder. Gryphon snorts and stamps around irritably, tossing her head.

“The Dark Ages.” Pitch waves an arm out over the city slowly descending into chaos before them. “You and I together could make the whole _world_ this way.” He turns to Jamie with a smile like a knife. “Nothing but fear, and darkness…and us.”

For an instant, Jamie wants it more than anything. He wants the world laid out at his feet, full of impenetrable darkness and flickering shadows and the fear of things on the edge of imagination. But then he actually _looks_ at the scene unfolding before him and feels sick. It’s all going wrong. People aren’t just afraid, they’re _drowning_ in their fear and grasping out for anything they can reach. They’re turning their fear into anger, into hate, into despair, hurting themselves and everyone around them and _they’re not even properly scared anymore_.

Pitch is smiling expectantly down at him. Jamie takes a deep breath. “I -”

He feels the change at the same time as Pitch does, if the sudden scowl that crosses the Nightmare King’s face is any indication. It’s tiny, a single bright note in the symphony of unrelenting fear and anger, but it seems all the stronger for it. Somewhere in the city, someone is dreaming the nightmares back into good dreams.

Jamie spots the single flare of gold only seconds before Pitch does.

“I think you missed a spot,” Pitch says, and reaches out to pull a massive scythe of glittering sand from midair.

He’s gone, back into the dark, before Jamie can move.

Jamie doesn’t stay frozen for long, though. He tries to ignore the icy feeling of dread that grips his lungs, the way the shadows cluster around him as though drawn to his sudden lancing fear like moths to a flame. It’s all going wrong. It’s all _gone_ wrong.

He unravels Gryphon around himself and follows without a thought.

…

The bedroom is small and close and the small blonde girl curled up under the bright pink covers, dreaming of bread-and-butterflies, doesn’t even notice the way the dark curls around her like a wave about to break. Pitch looks up and smiles when Jamie stumbles into the room. “Little darling, isn’t she?” His smile turns sharp. “Reminds me of you at that age.”

Jamie’s throat tightens and he reaches out, Gryphon’s sand swirling into a long and slender shape beneath his fingers. He glances over at it, takes in the overlong blade fixed to the end of the staff, and wonders what it’s called. It’s more like a sword than a spear, even though the pole is almost as long as he is tall. Even though he can’t quite put a name to it, it feels right in his hand.  “Leave her alone.”

Pitch’s sharp smile freezes. “What did you just say?”

Jamie shifts his grip on the spear-sword ( _glaive_ , something in the back of his mind supplies) and hopes like hell that he’ll be able to use it. “I said, leave her alone. She’s just a kid.”

“That didn’t seem to matter when _you_ were the one corrupting their dreams. When _you_ were taking away what little light they can find in the incomprehensible darkness of sleep.” Pitch advances slowly across the room, seeming more to flow than walk. “Perhaps I should let you snuff out her little light?”

He reaches out, but Jamie lowers the glaive so that the blade faces Pitch. “Don’t touch me. And don’t touch her.”

“How _precious_.” There’s real venom in Pitch’s voice, undisguised and bitter. “Do you fancy yourself a Guardian, now? I thought they’d proven that they _don’t want you_. And why would they? This is _all_ you are.”

Jamie squeezes the handle of the glaive a little tighter. “It’s all wrong. Can’t you feel it? There’s a _riot_ going on out there. Those people aren’t scared of _you_. They’re scared of _each other_.”

“You’d prefer _happy dreams_ , then? _Wonder_? _Hope_?” Pitch spits the words like curses.

“Maybe I would!” Jamie explodes. It’s the wrong thing to say. Pitch goes still as a statue carved from onyx, the hissing shadows swirling around him and behind him until Jamie can no longer make out the look on his face.

The dark sweeps over the room, clears away to reveal the silvery highlights and velvety shadows of the lair underground. Jamie relaxes, just slightly, when he realizes the little girl is no longer in danger. It’s his second mistake. Pitch snaps his fingers, and shadows whip out of the surrounding dark, wrap around Jamie’s arms and legs and force him to his knees. He tries to struggle, force them away, but they only laugh their strange hissing laughs in his ears and hold him the more tightly.

“This is the thanks I get?” Pitch shouts, and Jamie flinches back. “After everything I’ve done for you, after everything I’ve _made_ you, you’d still turn on me just like that? You’d still choose those – those -”

“I didn’t -” Jamie starts, and a tendril of dark wraps itself firmly over his mouth.

Pitch seems to pull himself together, pacing in a wide, slow circle around Jamie. Jamie tries not to tense when the Nightmare King slips out of sight, but fails miserably.

“I see now,” Pitch finally says, his voice heavy with cold fury as he glides back into Jamie’s line of sight, “that I gave you far too much free will.”

The bloom of sudden icy fear that ripples through Jamie only makes him struggle more, thrashing against the shadows holding him in place. It gets him nowhere, though, and when Pitch grabs his chin and forces his head up, a wave of terrifying familiarity washes over Jamie.

“Luckily,” Pitch says, and his voice is low and tinged with something almost sad, “that mistake is easily corrected.” He does not smile.

Jamie tries in vain to pull away from the spidery fingers that press against his chest, just above his heart.


	13. Chapter 13

_Darkness_.

That’s the first thing he remembers.

The world around him is a thousand different shades of deep and deeper dark, shadows that coil and curl and weave in and out of each other in undulating waves. The moment he opens his eyes, the shadows flock to him, purring and cooing and pressing in close, cuddling up to him and brushing soft tendrils across his face and through his hair. He laughs, trying to shake them off, and they pull him to his feet, whispering excitedly.

When he moves, shadow moves with him. He spins, and a gleeful whirl of dark spins around him. Shadow skitters away at his command, forms itself into fantastical shapes and collapses into a mere whisper of possibility. The world is new and dark and _wonderful_ and he pulls the shadows into something that’s halfway between a dance and a race, flickering dart-quick around him in dizzy spirals at every step.  

As he turns in big, slow circles, trying to take in the whole vast chamber he’s found himself in, he trips over a step and falls backwards for a terrifying instant before he realizes he hasn’t hit the ground. Instead, shadow cradles him, holds him close and covered, concealed in a patch of deeper dark no thicker than a breath. It’s the most amazing discovery yet, and he lets out a whoop as he flickers from shadow to shadow through the massive labyrinth, casting shapes of forgotten beasts and impossible monsters as he goes. He whirls out again when something _tugs_ at him almost imperceptibly, some sense of _here_ -ness, and finds himself at the end of a long hall lined with black pillars. Half of the pillars have fallen against the others or seem to have melted away, curled and curdled more like frozen waves than metal.

_~~the thought of frozen things prickles uncomfortably and he’s not sure why~~ _

“ _There_ you are.”

The boy turns to face the direction of the voice, and the dark roils, swirls, releases a figure tall and shadowy and the very best kind of familiar.

“I see you’re finally awa -” the figure – _the man who madeyouchoseyoulovesyou_ – starts, but sputters to a halt when the boy launches himself at him and wraps both arms around his middle.

The boy barely notices the shock and confusion his embrace has caused. He owes this whole fantastic existence to this man, even if he’s not quite sure how he knows that. When the man – _fathermasterking_ – tentatively returns the embrace, the boy wonders if it’s possible to actually explode from joy.

“Well, I was about to ask how you’re feeling now,” the man says, softly, and the boy gives a little hum of happiness and cuddles closer. “But I think this is answer enough.” His arms are warm, but not oppressively so, and when he threads a hand possessively through the boy’s hair it’s so _right_ that the boy could almost cry.

He _belongs_ here, belongs to this ruler of shadows and dark, and he knows in an instant that he would do anything for his king.

He looks up into silvery eyes and a sharp smile, and offers his best smile in return. And for a moment, everything in the world is perfect.

“Pitch!”

The voice is _~~familiar~~_ distant and deep, filtering through the dark to echo between the pillars. The shout is furious, but the voice itself is thick and heavy with something _wonderful_.

“I know you’re down here!” That sharp sweet wonderful _something_ grows stronger with every word, and for the first time the boy realizes that he’s starving. “Come out and face me!”

“I believe we have a visitor,” the man _~~Pitch~~_ says, and there’s a wicked twist to his smile. “Shall we go see who it is?”

…

The shadows set them down in the middle of a jumble of staircases, arching up into nowhere and down into darkness in Escherian combinations. The place is illuminated in silver that only just gives definition to the darkness, and standing in a shaft of silver light, turning in wary circles to face the flickering golden eyes of the creatures that surround him, is –

_~~is~~ _

– a boy with silver hair and a steely look on his face. That strange sharp wonderful feeling is rolling off of him in great lazy waves, and it spikes when Pitch steps out behind him in a swirl of shadow and sand.

“Jack Frost. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The boy called Jack Frost raises his staff like a weapon, aiming its crook directly at Pitch’s chest. “Don’t play games with me. What did you do with Jamie?”

_~~that name prickles like the thought of frozen things and he doesn’t know~~ _ ~~why~~

Pitch tuts, stalking a slow circle around Jack, who follows his movements warily. “My, my, Jack, you haven’t misplaced your first believer, now, have you?”

“I know you took him,” Jack says, his voice low and warning. He doesn’t seem to notice the way the golden eyes are gathering behind him.

“I don’t have your Jamie,” Pitch sighs. “Perhaps you _left_ him somewhere.”

Jack winces visibly at that, shoulders hunching. “Shut up,” he snaps.

“Mm, I think not.” Pitch stops in his tracks, taps a finger thoughtfully against his chin. “Tell me, where are your friends? Surely you can’t have been foolhardy enough to come looking for me _alone_.”

“They’re still cleaning up the mess you left in Australia.” Jack shifts his grip on his staff, and the temperature plummets. “Let Jamie go, and maybe I’ll give you a head start.”

Pitch chuckles, a deep and dark and rolling sound that echoes through the cavernous hall. The mass of shifting black sand behind Jack hisses as it slithers out to either side, and Jack spins and fires a bolt of crackling blue at the nearest pair of burning eyes. Ice splashes against the stone wall, and the sharp sweet feeling grows so thick the boy can practically taste it on the air.

“I don’t think I’ll be the one needing the head start,” Pitch says, shaking his head. “But if you insist…” He turns to the shadow that still hides the boy, extending a hand.

There’s a little tug, a feeling of _here_ -ness, and the boy steps out of the dark, up to his master’s side.

“Jamie?”

He frowns at the pins-and-needles feeling that fills his head at the sound of the name. There’s something about the horrified look that Jack gives him that makes him feel very odd indeed, so he looks up at Pitch instead.

“I told you, Frost. I don’t have _your_ Jamie.” The smile that grows across his face is almost a snarl, and Jack steps backwards, apparently forgetting the nightmares – _nightmares? Nightmares_ – clustered behind him. “You had your chance. And now – well, what do you think of my prince?”

_Prince?_

_~~that’s me~~ _

Jack’s face twists, and he lunges forward with an angry yell and his staff raised. The boy _prince?_ doesn’t even think. He thrusts out a hand (the sand that spirals into shape in his grip feels confused, as though it had expected to take a different form) and slices the oversized scythe down towards Jack’s staff. Jack notices just in time, shifting his grip so that the handle of the scythe catches the crook of his staff, and yanks the scythe from its wielder’s grasp. It dissolves the instant it leaves the boy-who-is-a-prince’s hands, and he calls it back to him with a flicker of annoyance.

Jack looks stunned, gaze darting between the boy-who-is-a-prince and his king. “Jamie?” he says again, and the boy-who-is-a-prince wonders if his master would mind if he cut out Jack’s tongue to stop him _saying_ that. “What are you – why are you protecting him?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Frost?” Pitch says, his voice dangerously sweet as he steps forward, resting a hand momentarily on the boy-who-is-a-prince’s shoulder. “He’s _mine_. And this time, that blasted Man in the Moon can’t interfere.” He squeezes the boy-who-is-a-prince’s shoulder hard enough to hurt, before stalking past him to face Jack. “Your last light has gone dark. And the rest of the world will follow.”

He raises one hand with a flourish, and the nightmares pounce.

Jack lashes out, splattering black sand-laced ice against the walls and walkways. It’s a one-sided fight, though, and it isn’t long before he vanishes in a storm of swirling hooves and teeth and sparkling black. There’s a single perfect rush of that strange sharp _wonderful_ feeling, cold and brittle and looming like a wave overhead.

And then it vanishes.

The boy-who-is-a-prince doesn’t have time to wonder what happened before blue light fireworks out from the centre of the storm, flash-freezing the nightmares into a towering column of curling, glittering black ice.

Which shatters, exploding outward in a hail of shrapnel and deadly shards. Jack is only visible for a few seconds as a streak of blue and white, bright against the darkness, as he flies straight up as if shot from a cannon. Shadows grasp upwards after him, great black hands reaching and grasping but falling just short of the escaping spirit. The boy-who-is-a-prince starts after him, too, but is pulled up short by that odd insistent tug. He looks up to Pitch, for permission.

Pitch isn’t looking at him. He’s staring up at the spiral of ice left in Jack’s wake with something steely in his eyes. When the boy-who-is-a-prince pulls at his arm, he turns, and his smile is venomous.

“Kill him.”

The boy-who-is-a-prince nods, and dives forward into the dark with a smile.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise profusely for the delay. For some reason, writing this chapter was like pulling teeth. It's a bit longer than usual, though; hopefully that will go some of the way towards making up for my inexcusable lateness. 
> 
> I will also be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo throughout July, so waits between updates may be longer than usual. Thanks for bearing with me!

The world outside is white.

He hadn’t known there could _be_ so much brightness, and it strikes him like a slap in the face. It’s alien and almost painful, but there’s something beautiful about it nonetheless, in the spindly arms of the branches reaching up against the dark, overcast sky and the crisp edges of the shadows as they speed over the snow. He wants to stop, to explore, to drink it all in. But first, he has a task to carry out.

Jack doesn’t have much of a head start. It doesn’t take too long for the boy-who-is-a-prince to catch him up, whispering through the ever-shifting shadows. He whirls up out of the dark directly in Jack’s path, scythe already tearing a sweeping slice through the air.

Jack shouts in surprise, and a ferocious gust of wind scoops him up and out of the scythe’s trajectory, over the head of the boy-who-is-a-prince. The sudden blast of wind blows the boy backwards, catching the oversized head of the scythe as he tries to correct his stroke. The weapon suddenly feels far too unwieldy for the task at hand, and again the sand that makes it up tries to suggest a slenderer shape. The boy unravels it and drops back into shadow.

This will be harder in the air, but far from impossible. The boy-who-is-a-prince can’t help a smile at the thought, a fierce joy thrilling through him as he spirals up and back into the race. This is going to be _fun_.

But it isn’t.

Jack doesn’t stop, barely fights, and even when he does, the boy-who-is-a-prince can tell he’s holding back. The boy flings everything he has at Jack, drags him back to the earth with the long, grasping shadows of the trees, fires razor-edged bolts of shimmering sand too fast and thick to dodge, and still can barely get Jack to defend himself. It’s infuriating, even more infuriating when the boy notices that even this barest minimum of self-defense is enough to keep him at bay. This _can’t_ be right. Once – _once we had the power to snuff out stars_

Jack blows away the last arrow with a gust of cold wind that barely sets the boy-who-is-a-prince’s cloak fluttering, and dives up into the arms of that wind to avoid the next strike that the boy aims at him. “Jamie, _please_ , don’t do this,” Jack pleads, holding his staff in front of him like a shield.

The boy opens his mouth, but it’s the shadows that speak, a thousand hissing voices united and furious. “ _Not its name not anymore ours not yours ours ours ourssss -_ ”

Jack stiffens in midair, dropping a good foot before regaining his composure. The boy-who-is-a-prince dives forward to take advantage of his shock, feeling the sudden burst of that strange sickly-sweet feeling as a moment of sudden clarity and strength. This strike will land, he’s sure of it.

And finally, _finally_ , Jack fights.

Ice sprays up around the boy-who-is-a-prince, deadly shards that pierce effortlessly through the shadows. The boy slings sand and darkness at Jack with gleeful ferocity, trying to coax back that lovely razor-edged sweetness, but Jack matches him blow for blow, and to his dismay, the boy finds himself driven back, out of the shadow of the trees.

He drops into the cast shadow of a spindly tree-branch, clutching his shoulder where a bolt of flash-frozen sand was blown back at him. The wound isn’t large, but it’s harder to knit together than it ought to be, the edges ragged and deadened with frostbite. He hisses at the sting as he coils a length of darkness around his arm as a makeshift bandage, and sets the tree-shadows spinning and reaching, hunting for Jack.

The frost spirit is turning slowly as he retreats out of the dark under the trees, obviously looking out for his opponent’s next attack. The boy –who –is –a -prince rises soundlessly from the shadows behind him, drawing a thin trickle of sand into a long, slender shape. The blade that forms at the end begins straight and sharp, before curving into the familiar scytheblade.

Jack’s slow turn finally brings him around to face the boy, just in time to put his throat squarely in the path of the scythe’s swing. Jack stumbles backwards before the swing can connect, raising his staff, and the shadows of the trees grasp at him even as he fires.

The night explodes in blue.

Shadows are burnt away, the scythe and attendant nightmares blown apart, and the boy blasted completely off his feet by a cold so deep and biting that he can’t even feel it until the first blast subsides. The trees groan under blankets of ice, icicles hanging horizontal from their trunks, and a few smaller saplings simply snap under the weight. The cold hits the boy a moment later, although ‘cold’ is hardly strong enough to describe it; this is like being torn open by claws of glacial ice, like the blood has frozen in his veins but still tries to flow.

He lands with a jarring thump, flat on his back, and lies still for a long moment, trying to recover himself. The boy reaches for a shadow to drop into, but finds nothing within reach.  He’s been thrust completely out of the trees, out of the dark.

The boy sits up, wincing at the bite of cold as ice crackles off of his front, and makes to stand. Jack hovers at the edge of the clearing, looking stricken, and he winces in sympathy when the boy tries to sit up. The way he steps out into the clearing is wary, though, his steps cautious and his staff raised against further attacks.

“Jamie?”

The boy-who-is-a-prince snarls, reaching for something, anything, to make a weapon of. The shadows that answer his call are sluggish, weak, his nightmares working their way slowly free of the ice, and a prickle of discomfort worries at the back of his mind. Nonetheless, he pulls himself to his feet, gathering what darkness he can muster to himself. Two short blades resolve out of shadow, unlovely but useful. It seems to take more effort than it ought, and he scowls as he circles slowly toward the treeline and the blissful dark. If he can only bring this back into his element –

Without warning, the clouds above part, and the clearing is flooded with silvery light.

The moonlight _burns_ , an icy sting all over his exposed face and hands, and a flare of brilliant pain in his chest, just where his heart should be. The boy shrinks back, fight momentarily forgotten. He looks up at the distant and impassive face of the moon, and _wants nothing more than to rip the smiling Tsar from his place in the sky_ –

A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye; the boy-who-is-a-prince spins, and Jack freezes in place. He’s only taken a single step forward, has lowered his staff. As though the fight is already over. As though the boy isn’t even a _threat_.

Hot and unfamiliar hate courses through him, fills him with incandescent anger and a strength he doesn’t recognize. Overhead, a cloud passes between them and the moon, and the clearing falls into shadow.

_Kill him._

Jack isn’t prepared for the first blow; it comes from all around, tree-shadows turned to whips and grasping talons, and he shouts in pain and surprise when they rake across his back, claw at his legs. It’s little more than a distraction, but it serves its purpose. Jack’s caught offguard by the second strike, fighting off the shadows that cling and lash at him, and brings his staff back up too late to block the sweeping blow that the boy aims at his chest. One short sword glances off of the staff and catches Jack in the shoulder, knocking him back. The wind howls around them both, lifting him like a leaf.

The boy-who-is-a-prince gives a little growl of frustration, ignoring the growing throb of pain in his chest, and calls on his favourite of the nightmares. Though still weak from battling her way through ice and snow, she comes quickly, bearing him up towards the clouds on a glittering black cloud of his own. Whispering tendrils of darkness peel up from the snow and rise after him.

The battle is short, and fierce, and silent, save for the quiet shifting of sand and the fizzling crackle of ice. What nightmares the boy could salvage glint darkly in the occasional glimmer of moonlight that fights through the scraps of cloud, their constant harrassment drawing Jack’s attention from the boy who commands them and the ball of concentrated blackness  growing at his fingertips. He’s so focused on building the missile, on finding an opening to hit Jack, that he barely notices the darkly-glittering snowflakes bursting around him until there are suddenly no more nightmares in the sky.

Just as the last shower of flakes falls away, the boy-who-is-a-prince flings the ball.

\- _the crunch and crisp bite of snow between his fingers, the spin and heft of icy projectiles, the echo of laughter on the wind –_

Jack dives, barrel rolls through the air out of reach and out of range. He needn’t have worried; the boy-who-is-a-prince has nearly doubled over at the twin stabs of sudden, bitter-bright pain in his heart and needle-sharp jabs at his head. Somewhere overhead, the ball of solid darkness explodes harmlessly, shadows streaming out in all directions as they flee the unexpected bloom of moonlight between the clouds. The nightmare who carries the boy in midair plucks anxiously at him, and he straightens, pushing away the faint impression of cold and – _joy_? – that had hurt so badly.

Jack hasn’t run. In fact, he’s barely even moved, hovering close enough to touch, despite the wind’s frantic tugging. And though the look that he trains on the boy-who-is-a-prince is full of that strange sweet something, it’s not _of_ the boy. 

It’s _for_ him. And Jack’s voice, when he speaks, is sickeningly hopeful.

“Jamie?”

The boy shakes his head no, wincing, but Jack only flies closer, his jaw set determinedly. “I know you’re in there. You have to fight it, Jamie! You have to -”

Something changes. Something turns the determination on his face into dawning, horrified pity.

“You have to believe in me,” he says, softly, to himself, and the boy-who-is-a-prince has heard _enough_.

He cuts Jack off with another blast of dark, a haphazard shot that even at such close range has little chance of hitting its intended target. It doesn’t matter, though; it takes Jack a moment to reel out of the way, and that moment is all the boy needs to wrap himself in what remains of his favourite nightmare and reemerge, in a whirl, directly behind Jack. The wind shrieks a warning, and Jack turns, too late.

This time, the boy does not miss.

Jack drops soundlessly, one hand pressed to his side, a slow, arching fall down, down into the trackless snow below. The staff slips from his fingers, landing as the boy-who-is-a-prince does, inches from his feet.

It can’t have been that easy. The boy reaches down for the staff, but stops short. It would be far wiser to make certain its owner can’t get up, first, before he bothers with a length of wood.

_~~he ignores the inkling that to break the staff~~ _ ~~is _to make certain its owner can’t get up_~~

Jack doesn’t try to rise, but he lets out a hollow groan when the boy’s shadow falls across him. The frost spirit reaches out for his staff, fingers scrabbling and closing on empty air. The boy-who-is-a-prince raises a hand, and the black-sand blade that forms there is long and curved and elegant, glinting with wicked sharpness.

The wind keens like a dying man, howling helplessly around the boy as he raises the sword.

“I’m sorry.”

The words are quiet, almost too faint to be heard over the wailing wind, but there’s something about them that makes the boy freeze in place. The wind stills, faint eddies worriedly ruffling Jack’s hair. Jack sighs, and turns his face up to the moonlight filtering through the crumbling clouds.

“This is all my fault.”


	15. Chapter 15

“What?”

The word escapes before the boy even knows he plans to speak. He’s surprised at the sound of his own voice; it’s nothing like the hissing whispers of the shadows, nothing like the soft, dark, dangerous voice of his master, nothing like anything he hears in his head, phrasing and framing his thoughts.

Jack looks up, eyes wide. “Ja -” He bites back the word before it’s out, but the hope that fills his face says it as clearly as any words could.

Something about that hope, though, something in the hint of a smile that barely brushes across Jack’s face, freezes the boy-who-is-a-prince in place as surely as any ice. His every thought screams at him to end this, to strike and please his master and be done with the whole mess, but he doesn’t move. The sound of the voice – _his_ voice? – is still ringing in his head, and the whispery hissing voices he had taken for his own thoughts seem very pale and weak in comparison.

He wants to hear the voice that he had spoken with, the voice that he thinks must belong to him, as much as he wants an explanation. More, in fact, since the sound of his voice doesn’t hurt like trying to remember does. And when he lowers the glittering blade and demands, “What do you mean?”, it’s mostly to hear himself speak.

The words come out crisp, clear, certain, and the hissing voices whisper that it isn’t nice, isn’t good to listen to. The boy, though, shakes his head at that thought. It isn’t his, it doesn’t sound like him, it isn’t spoken in his own voice. To think that there are thoughts in his own head which are not his is a strange and skin-crawling feeling. Where do they come from, then? And which thoughts _do_ belong to him?

 _These ones_ , he thinks, and ignores all the others that try to drown him out, despite the dull throb of warning at the back of his skull.

Jack is talking, again, his eyes alight from inside as he pushes himself slowly upright. “I should have been there. All of us should have. It wasn’t – You weren’t really alone, you know. Not ever. We were still watching out for you.” His laugh is dark and bitter. “Well, the others were, anyway. And look how much good _that_ did. If I hadn’t been such a _coward -_ ”

Jack stops, and sighs, and the boy dares to hope that it might be over. He still can’t seem to move, can’t quite summon the conviction to swing a blade.

“I should have been there,” Jack repeats, in a voice that is little louder than the soft sighing of the wind, his blue eyes boring into the boy’s as though searching for something. “I would have known something wasn’t right. But -” He looks up to the moon again, just peering through the tattered clouds, and chokes on a laugh that is halfway to a sob. “I was _scared_. Scared you wouldn’t believe anymore, because we couldn’t protect you. Because we – we couldn’t do anything to help her.”

_~~smile warmth kindness and safety and~~ _

_~~white room white sheets white charts white a black smudge snaps sharp-edged words~~ _

_~~airy dark warm arms around him fog and poison words soothing as drowning~~ _

To the boy-who-is-a-prince, it feels as though he’s been struck. He takes a few stumbling steps backwards, trying to regain his balance under the force of the bloom of burning, clawing pain where his heart should be. The impressions flicker past almost too quickly to comprehend, swallowing up the sound of the shadows’ screeching.

The moon’s bright face winks at him through the clouds, and the old hate fills him. But this time, it feels strange, almost distant, as though it doesn’t quite belong to him.

_~~it doesn’t~~ _

That thought, he thinks, must be his. It speaks in the voice he now recognizes as his own, despite the best efforts of his other thoughts trying to drown it out. And yet, he does not trust it. He _hates_ the moonlight, the – the – _man in the moon_ yes, the man who sends moonbeams down against him. He has for as long as he can remember.

But how much _does_ he remember? How much has he _forgotten_?

Jack is still talking, as though he hasn’t noticed that the boy-who-is-a-prince _~~and how do I know that?~~_ is in distress. But the frost spirit’s eyes are wary, and he carefully watches the boy’s every move, tensing up when the clouds draw together once more over the face of the moon.

“You were just so angry, and when Tooth said maybe we should give you some space, some time to grieve…” He tucks his hands into the pocket on the front of his hooded sweater, his shoulders hunched forward slightly as though he’s trying to cave in on himself. “I ran. I just _ran_. I should have been there when you needed me, whether you wanted me there or not. But I wasn’t.”

 _~~“I believed in you! I believed in all of you and you did~~ _ ~~nothing _-”_~~

_~~“Okay, look. You and I are obviously at what they call a crossroads.”~~ _

The feeling where the boy’s heart should be is not so much _painful_ , he thinks. Or if it is, it’s the pain of mending things, a broken bone set back into place, the jab of a needle delivering medicine. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t _hurt_ , and this set of flashes cuts his legs out from under him, drops him to his knees.

Jack is up in an instant, on his feet, ignoring the wind that tries to drive him back as he approaches the boy-who-is-a-prince. “Jamie?” Jack asks softly, and this time the name doesn’t just _prickle_ , it’s like a thousand needles being jabbed into the boy’s mind.

“Stop,” he whispers, or thinks he does. Perhaps it’s the thoughts-that-are-not-his that speak instead. It feels like he’s being torn in two, and he screams out against it. “Stop it! Leave me _alone_!”

_~~“Jamie, we can’t -”~~ _

_~~“You can’t what? Can’t help? Can’t actually change anything? Can’t protect the people you’re supposed to be Guardians of? I know I’m…I’m not…but Soph’s still just a kid, she doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve to grow up without a~~ _ ~~mother. _”_~~

_~~“Please, Jamie, if you’d just listen -”~~ _

_~~“Leave me~~ _ ~~alone _.”_~~

He claps his hands over his ears, but it’s a futile effort. The voices are only memories, echoing emptily around his head. And now that they’ve been heard, they refuse to fall silent again. Fragments bubble up seemingly without direction or order, overlapping each other in their haste to be remembered.

_~~“Take care of your sister while I’m gone, okay?”~~ _

_~~“You need to grow up.”~~ _

_~~“I should~~ _ ~~never _have believed in you!”_~~

_~~“You have no idea how they betrayed you.”~~ _

The shadows pour over him, soothing the burn of the silver moonlight but not the burning where his heart should be. The flood of memories dulls as the dark gathers around him, but somehow this is almost worse. The shadows’ incessant reedy whispering has turned insistent, impatient, and he wonders if they’ve always sounded so vicious.

“Leave me alone,” he whispers again, and isn’t sure if he’s talking to Jack or his own shadows.

But the whispers don’t stop. Nor does the pain, the lancing headache-throb at the very base of his skull that spikes with each flicker of memory, or the searing, crackling flares like the place where his heart should be has caught fire and the flames are scouring him hollow. The flickers only come faster, snippets of half-remembered sound and colour plucked from all context and meaning, gone too fast to follow. But the feelings they carry in their wake are vast and deep, a deadly undertow that threatens to drag him down and drown him. It’s all too bright, too sharp, and he clings to the dark like a lifeline, but all of a sudden it is not so reassuring either. There is something sinister in the shadows’ soothing, something smothering, something suffocating, and it’s almost a relief when moonbeams slice through the enshrouding darkness like a sword.

They find the place where his heart should be with unerring aim, and the flash and the shriek like tearing metal that accompany them belong to a memory he knows somehow is older than he is, of falling from somewhere above the clouds, above the burning atmosphere, impaled with light. That memory is not his, not like the images and feelings that unspool in one furious burst, overwhelming in its intensity, as though the lancing brightness has broken a dam within him and let them all pour out. “No,” he gasps, or perhaps only thinks he does, but he is helpless against the onslaught of voices. They rise in an incoherent babble in which he can only make out with any kind of clarity one word, repeated in countless different memories. The same word that Jack shouts, the same word that a voice, sweet and sad and determined, speaks across the impossible distance between earth and moon.

“Jamie!”

That name.

 _His_ name.

For the first time, he recognizes the strange sweetly-sharp feeling for what it is. And for the first time he can remember _but not quite because the flood hasn’t ceased there’s still a lifetime pouring down on him_ , he is afraid.

The world goes white, and all he knows is the crisp, welcoming cold of snow.

…

_He is young, very young, and a hand points to the night sky, to the place where a light had streaked across it moments before. A voice, warm and soft and loving, says, “Make a wish!”_

_He is ten years old, and magic is real._

 

 

_He is eleven years old, and icy slush trickles down the back of his neck, soaks his gloves, freezes him to the bone, but the joy of the game warms him from the inside out.  
_

 

_He is eight years old and his mother won’t tell him when his father will come back._

_He is thirteen years old and his mother is always tired._

_He is fifteen years old, and his mother tells him to take care of Sophie while she’s in the hospital, a charge that he accepts with the solemnity of a knight accepting a grail quest._

_He is twelve years old, and his friends are too old for fairy tales._

_He is sixteen, and he has no friends._

_He is sixteen and he doesn’t have time for them anyway. His life is spent at school, at the hospital, or dragging Sophie out of one scrape or the next. She is eight and she believes in no one and nothing._

_He is seventeen, and there was nothing more the doctors could do._

_Nothing more_ anyone _could do. He doesn’t know which is worse: thinking that his childhood heroes wouldn’t do anything, or that they_ couldn’t _._

_He is seventeen when he finally loses faith. Magic cannot save the world. It can’t even save one person._

_And when a shadow on the wall of the dormitory in the group home he’s been placed in moves on its own, the stab of freefall terror is worth the knowledge that there is still more to the world than dull monotony and despair._

_He looks out through his own eyes as his body moves without his command, rising from the jangly old mattress with his heart pounding in his throat. He tries to blink, to speak, to move, but he seems carried along by a tide of history, unable to break out of the motions he knows somehow he’s already made. “Pitch?”_

_“Careful, or someone will hear you talking to yourself.”The voice –_ fathermasterking _–_ Pitch Black, the Boogeyman, the _enemy_ – _sounds faintly amused. As the shadow that is Pitch Black circles the room, Jamie’s body turns to follow it, taking Jamie with it. “Not that that will make much of a difference.”_

_“What’s that supposed to mean?” It’s strange to feel his own mouth forming the shapes of words without knowing he’s going to speak them._

_The shadows gather into a darker patch in the centre of the room, the Nightmare King stepping forward from it casually. “Word travels quickly, you know. Everyone here -”_

_“Thinks I’m crazy. Yeah. I can handle it.” He knows somehow that it’s a hollow boast. So, clearly, does Pitch, whose smile only grows wider._

_“Really? You can handle being alone and utterly friendless?”_

_“It’s better than being stuck with_ you _,” Jamie snaps back, and a scowl settles into place on Pitch’s face, the room growing a few shades darker._

 _“I see. Very brave of you, standing up to me like this without your precious Guardians around to back you up.” He pauses, raising a finger thoughtfully. “Where_ are _they, anyway? Surely they haven’t merely abandoned you to your miserable, lonely fate?”_

_“Shut up,” Jamie answers hotly, and Pitch laughs._

_“They_ have _! Oh, this is just too rich. And after you put your own life on the line for them, too.” He sighs happily, clasping his hands together. “You must just_ hate _them for that.”_

_Jamie doesn’t answer. Instead, he half-turns to face the door. “If you just came here to gloat -”_

_“Oh, no,” Pitch answers, and his voice carries oddly in the small room. “No, I don’t wish to gloat. I have far bigger things in mind.”_

_A chill runs down Jamie’s spine, a chill he tries to ignore. His hands curl into fists so tightly that his nails bite into the heels of his hands, but he doesn’t unclench them._

_“The Guardians made a fool of me – of both of us,” Pitch continues, and there’s an edge of menace in his conversational tone. “They cast us down, discarded us like so much rubbish, left us to suffer – alone – and for what? For wanting nothing more than their kindness, their aid? For the crime of daring to exist?” He rests a single, spidery hand on Jamie’s shoulder, and Jamie shrugs it off._

_“You tried to kill me,” Jamie points out. “And all of them. And take away everything that made life bearable -” He bites off the rest of the sentence._

_“Oh, but the world does that on its own.” Pitch’s voice is soft and dangerous. “You should know that by now. And isn’t it crueler to let you believe the lie for so long?”_

_“They’re not -”_

_“They are. For all their magic, they still needed_ you _to save_ them _. You do know what that means, don’t you?” Jamie doesn’t move, can’t move, even though his skin is crawling with every slippery word. “_ You _are the one with the power. You always have been. You saved them…and you can destroy them.”_

_It feels like the whole room is holding its breath._

_“No,” Jamie hears himself say, at long last._

_“No?”_

_“No.” He turns to face Pitch, who looks a little like he’s just been smacked. “I’m not you. I don’t want revenge. And I don’t need you.”_

_For just an instant, the Nightmare King’s eyes flash furious before his face settles into a carefully disinterested expression. “Really. Hm. I must have misjudged you. I thought you were a sickeningly fearless little brat who wouldn’t hesitate to stand up for himself.”_

_“I think I just_ did _,” Jamie shoots back. Pitch half-shrugs, looking around the room as though bored._

_“Goodie for you. You know, the foster home your sister’s staying at is far nicer than this dump.”_

_Even though he knows that this has all happened already, the thought of Pitch standing in Sophie’s room, watching her while she is unable to see him, turns his veins to icewater. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to – Pitch turns back to him and smiles, and it’s like the gleam of a blade in the dark as the shadows gather around him again. “It’s a shame they had to split the two of you up, isn’t it? Now she’s all on her own, without anyone to protect her.”_

_“Don’t!” It bursts out of him unannounced. The swirling shadows freeze in place, and Pitch regards Jamie curiously, as though Jamie is a marionette who has just tugged at his own strings. “Don’t you_ dare _do anything to her -”_

 _“And who would stop me?” The look that crosses the Nightmare King’s face is pitying. “Not the Guardians – she doesn’t believe in them. And certainly not_ you _.” The shadows flicker. “You don’t believe in_ anything _.”_

_He wants to deny it, he wants to fight it, but it’s true. He no longer believes with all his heart that dreams can be made solid, that with a little faith the wicked can be cleansed and the dead brought back to life. He knows now that it’s nothing but air and dust and empty promises._

_Pitch was wrong. Jamie doesn’t have any power. Not anymore._

_Except -_

_“Fine.” His voice shakes, and he clenches his fists a little more tightly. He can’t meet Pitch’s eyes, and glares at the wall behind the Nightmare King instead. “I’ll help you – help you get your revenge, or whatever.”_

_Pitch hums thoughtfully. “A tempting offer, but -”_

_“I’ll do anything you want.” Jamie finally drags up the last dregs of his courage and meets Pitch’s shifting, metallic eyes. “Just leave Sophie alone.”_

_The smile that spreads slowly across Pitch’s face is cold and delighted and entirely inhuman. “Oh, you_ will _do anything I want.” He takes a step closer, and it takes everything Jamie has to stand his ground. “But for now…well, just try not to scream.”_

_Jamie bites his tongue, and somehow manages not to pull away from the spidery fingers that press against his chest, just above his heart._

_There is pain, and then there is nothing but darkness._


	16. Chapter 16

Sound comes back first, distant hisses and crackles like a radio tuned off-station. They’re accompanied by the clean, cold smell of snow, carried by the faintest of breezes that barely brushes his face.

The cold seeps in, light trickles in around the edges. The wind grows stronger, its faint brushes becoming stinging lashes as it howls past. The dark breaks down little by little, streaming away in inky blots to reveal blinding white, marred now and again by lightning-flashes of icy blue. The hissing and crackling sounds grow louder, almost unbearably so, joined by the occasional shout. He can’t quite make out the words.

Little by little, the winter world resolves out of the dark.

It takes Jamie a moment to sort out where he is now from the last, most vivid memory, half-expecting to see drab walls and peeling paint instead of the landscape he closed his eyes on. He breathes in, and the air tastes of ice, jagged crystals searing down his throat. It feels like awakening, like escaping, though there’s no golden light this time to lead him out of the dark.

That isn’t all that’s different, either. He remembers. _Everything_.

He can’t quell the furious, brightly-burning hope that blazes into being at the realization, but knows even as it does that nothing else has changed. The shadows still seethe at his every movement, though their whispers have turned from sweet and poisonous in turns, to a muted, wary hum, almost as though they’re frightened of _him_. It’s no surprise to see them still clinging to him, staining his skin charcoal-grey, but the sight sparks the memory of choked panic rising like bile in the back of his throat anyway. Knowing why it had felt so strange, so wrong, on first sight, doesn’t really make the memory any better.

And yet, it doesn’t seem quite so wrong anymore. The last lingering traces of the memory settle back into nothing but that, fragments of the past, taking the panic and the horror with them. The phantom feeling of cold fingers over his heart lingers a little longer, but that, too, fades.

He gives his fingers an experimental flex, and nothing happens. A faint flicker of disturbance, disgust, prickles at the back of his mind, but it’s nothing more than the echo of a feeling, no more substantial than a breath. Emboldened, he tries again, this time with a sort of _twist_ , and a fine trail of darkly glittering sand trickles out of midair, swirling into shape in the air before him. It only resembles a horse for an instant before it fully takes shape, moon-bright eyes blinking in an eagle’s face as a lion’s tail swishes restlessly between its back paws.

“Couldn’t have given you a better name, could I?” he says softly. Gryphon gives a cry that is halfway between a whicker and a screech, butting her head against his shoulder affectionately. He hesitates a moment, uncertain of how, exactly, one pets an eagle, before he gives her a scratch where her ears had been. She makes a sound a little like a purr, and a fine shower of black sand drifts down to glitter across the crisp white snow, little flickers of excited apprehension that spark and die just as quickly as they’re created.

Nothing has changed. And yet, everything has.

Another shout rends the air, the night sky turning blue, and though the temperature drops sharply, to Jamie it feels more like a red-hot wire’s been threaded up his spine. That’s _Jack_. That’s Jack’s voice, that’s Jack’s magic, and, if he concentrates, that’s a fine thread of Jack’s fear woven through the chill night air.

And that’s Pitch’s voice, honeyed and razor-sharp, calling out into the angry howls of the wind.

“Come now, did you really think you ever had a chance? I told you once, you make a mess wherever you go. Shame you didn’t listen…”

The swell of anger at the sound of that silken, smug voice catches Jamie by surprise. It rises like a black tide to obscure his vision, beating a ragged rhythm against his eardrums.

_“I must have been the only one who_ didn’t _leave you.”_

Every memory pours down on him at once, oily and sick with guilt and betrayal and hatred, feelings that that voice had sown in him, had encouraged, had led him to believe were his own. He’s been fooled, he’s been _played_ for a fool, used and misled and lied to and still somehow none of it hurts as much as knowing that he’d _believed_ it - !

He stands and turns in one swift motion, reaching out for the weapon that takes shape in the palm of his hand almost before he thinks of it. The weight of the glaive is hefty and reassuring, the balance of it fine and perfectly suited to his hand, and it whistles dangerously as he sweeps it experimentally through the air. Jamie can’t help the smile that threatens to spread across his face, the sudden rush of fierce and vengeful excitement that floods through him.

He’s going to make Pitch Black regret ever teaching him how to wield nightmares.

The next burst of blue and cold is accompanied by a ragged shout, wordless with rage. Jamie looks up, quickly finding Jack’s small, bright shape darting across the drifting clouds, towards a dark mass that can only be nightmare sand. A fresh surge of hate burns through Jamie when he remembers – those are _his_ nightmares, the ones that _he_ helped create, they should be giving people wicked and wonderful dreams, not being used like _this_ -  

“Oh, _Jack_. Did I strike a nerve?”

Pitch’s voice is clear and carrying, even from overhead, and Jamie doesn’t miss an ounce of the smugness that fills it. He’s _gloating_ , basking in Jack’s anger and helplessness like a cat soaking in the sun.

Perhaps that’s why, as Jamie rises through the winter air to meet them both, Pitch spares only a cursory glance and a short admonishment for his ‘prince’. “ _There_ you are. Is it really so hard to get rid of one annoying winter spirit?”

Jamie says nothing, turning to look at Jack, who has stopped, hovering in midair with a look of dawning betrayal only rivaled by the way he’d looked in the library. _The way he’d looked the last night Jamie had seen him, when Jamie had told him -_  

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Pitch’s voice cuts through the fog of memory like a lance, barbed and poison-tipped despite the layer of affected boredom. “You have your orders.”

_Kill him._

The remembered command still echoes powerfully in his skull, but this time, it isn’t strong enough to drown out his own thoughts. Jamie meets Jack’s eyes, seeing disbelief turn into despair as he raises the glaive, readying to strike.

And winks.

Jack’s eyes are just starting to widen when Jamie spins, the glaive slicing through the air with a thin high keening. Pitch isn’t expecting the strike, and reacts just seconds too late, flinging himself backwards in time to narrowly avoid being cut in two but not to avoid a long, shallow slash across the chest. Something black and oily spurts from the wound, and he claps a hand over it defensively, eyes wide in disbelief quickly narrowing into a glare. “What do you think you’re _doing_?”

A thrill of terror, of icy-fingered guilt, whispers through Jamie’s thoughts, _how dare you, you owe him everything, only one who ever cared about you, fathermasterKING_

A fresh surge of anger drowns the hissing voices long enough for Jamie to take a second swing, pouring all the force of his hurt, his rage, into the sweep of the blade. This time, though, Pitch sees it coming, and Jamie’s glaive meets nothing but air. A second wild cut strikes jarringly against the Nightmare King’s own weapon, a massive nightmaresand scythe which Pitch pulls out of thin air. Jamie breaks away first, drawing back as the roiling cloud of nightmares that Pitch commands charges forward to encircle them, hooves and teeth and eyes forming and dissolving as they spread out across the sky.

“You _dare_?” Pitch spits, taking another swing, one that Jamie manages to parry only with difficulty. “I _made_ you!”

He whips the scythe back around, fast and deadly, and the glaive jumps in Jamie’s hand, spinning him to catch the blow on its haft. The force of the block shudders through the weapon and down Jamie’s arms, jolting the glaive from his hands, where it collapses back into a swirl of sand. Pitch’s smile turns wicked, and he tosses his own scythe aside, letting it disintegrate and rejoin the cloud of nightmares that curl menacingly closer, closing in around Jamie, blotting out the light. “Are you ready to be a good, _obedient_ -”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence.

Instead, the threat is cut abruptly short when a snowball hits Pitch squarely in the ear. For an instant, the world doubles, the buildings of Burgess climbing upwards as a trail of ice forms to carry Jamie out of the alley and out of danger between the legs of stamping, snorting nightmares.

He looks up, and Jack is there, another snowball already in hand, a mischievous smile on his face despite the serious look in his eyes. “Hey, Pitch, this feel familiar to you?”

The look of shock slides off of Pitch’s face, quickly replaced by a venomous glare. He opens his mouth, perhaps to issue another threat, perhaps to cut Jack down with a handful of words, perhaps just to direct the nightmares to attack. Whatever it is, he doesn’t get to say it, stopped cold by the second snowball smacking into his face with a soft _pff_.

While Pitch is distracted brushing the snow out of his mouth, Jamie reaches out for Gryphon, a flood of relief pouring through him when her sand spirals out of the dark sky, pouring into the shape of the creature she’s named for. Slowly, he realizes that she isn’t the only nightmare he recognizes, that there are a crowd of very familiar terrors in the boiling cloud that encloses them. Jamie stares, trying to pick out individual features in the indistinct mass.

“That won’t work on me twice, Frost,” Pitch snarls, and there’s an echo to his voice, an underscoring, the shifting of sand somehow sounding like distant screams. “Thanks to _your_ precious last light, I’m as powerful as ever, whereas you – well, look at you! No friends to back you up, only a handful of tired, ineffective tricks up your sleeve…”

Some of the eyes that wink in the cloud of glittering dark, as it surges suddenly toward Jack in a massive wave, are silver, bright as moonbeams. The black sand quickly engulfs each bolt of icy lightning that Jack hurls at it, rolling over each strike like a hungry ocean and closing in around the winter spirit without even slowing.

Pitch’s smile is like a razor. “Oh, and no _children_ around to save you.”

_“But who’ll protect_ you _?”_

Jamie doesn’t think, only moves, putting himself between Jack and the nightmares just as the wave comes crashing down. The world doubles again, a memory of a flood of dark pouring down streets just as the flood of dark pours down on him, and he throws out both hands in front of him, calling on his nightmares with everything he's got.

_“I will.”_

Dark sand rich with paralysing horror crashes against his outstretched hands and spirals away, splintering into awe and apprehension and all manner of fantastical shapes. In moments, the cloud of dark sand has dwindled to half its size, and the freezing air is swarming with impossible creatures of all descriptions, silver-bright eyes flickering like stars, holding screaming mares at bay. Here, a dragon tears through a skeletal horse; there, a manticore's scorpion tail lashes out at encroaching coils of black sand. They're beautiful, and they're frightening, but most of all they're _his_ , his own creations, all the cryptids and creatures of his childhood brought to life by his own hands.

For a moment, all Jamie can do is stare.

It's the crackle of icy lightning that pulls him back to the present. Jack is still firing into the charging nightmares, but now it's starting to have an effect. Smears of black-streaked ice explode in midair, raining down around them and onto the snow below, dark against its brilliant white.

The smile that Jack gives him is as brilliant and white as the snow, and yet somehow it makes Jamie feel warm.

In the midst of this chaos, Pitch Black suddenly looks lost. Or not quite _lost_ \- more as if he can't quite believe the evidence of his own eyes, can't believe how quickly things have turned from his favour. Can't believe how something he'd been so certain of could fail him.

He looks up, meets Jamie's gaze and holds it, and guilt sears through Jamie's chest, a net of burning cold threading through his ribcage and squeezing the breath from his lungs. For the space of a second, the look Pitch gives him is not enraged, not wicked, but _hurt_. Like Jamie's taken something priceless from him.

This time, it's a very different memory that whispers treacherous words into his ear.

_"You aren't the only one who was alone."_

The clouds above shift, again, and moonlight mingles with the blue brilliance of Jack's powers. And, as though the light has broken a spell, any trace of hurt vanishes from Pitch's face, replaced instantly by rage. Jamie has only just enough time to call back his weapon before Pitch pulls the scythe out of midair. A blow that Jamie only just manages to duck spears a chimera and bursts it into glittering black dust, and Pitch snarls low and menacing, sweeping the scythe back only to be abruptly yanked downwards by the sudden addition of the weight of a heavy coating of ice along its blade. He struggles with it only for a moment, before letting it drop, straightening up as he turns a poisonous glare on Jamie and the cool breeze that Jamie takes to mean that Jack is at his side.

"Look at _you_ ," Pitch says, and there's a growl underneath the ironic pride in his voice. "Throwing around nightmares like you were _born_ for it."

Jamie can't help the flinch, the panic that grips his heart with frozen fingers, any more than he can help the anger that follows on their heels.

"Maybe you did make me," he says, a little louder than he means to. It's hard to judge over the sound of blood pounding in his ears. "But that doesn't mean you _own_ me." He grips the handle of his glaive until he can feel each grain of sand rough against his palm. "And it doesn't mean I owe you _anything_."

A scowl crosses Pitch's face, and he reaches out for the scythe again, but stops abruptly, staring at a point just beside Jamie's ear. The sight of his scowl turning into a smile is far more frightening than even his army of nightmares had been.

"You don't owe me anything." A chuckle rolls out of his throat, turning to a delighted laugh that cuts off abruptly. "Oh, but you _do_. We had an agreement, don't you remember?"

"What -" Jack starts to ask, but Pitch's words cut him short.

"But of course, if you want to _break_ it..."

"Jamie, what's he talking about?"

Jamie can't answer, can't find enough air in his lungs even to breathe. He shakes his head once, and Pitch's laughter seems to fill the universe.

"Oh, _no_. I've given you too many chances already," he hisses, and flings out both arms. Nightmare sand roils out of the air, spiralling around him, concealing him from view behind a towering column of swirling sand.  Jamie darts forward, too late. His blade meets nothing but air, Jack's blast of ice passing harmlessly overhead.

Pitch Black has vanished.

And Jamie knows, with the cold certainty of dread, exactly who he's gone to find.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I'm not dead!
> 
> I apologise profusely for my disappearance. We're into the homestretch now; there should only be about two more chapters left. A huge thank you to everyone!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, ROTG fandom! As a present this year, I'm finally finishing this fic.

The soft sound of shifting sand seems to fill the whole world, even after the column of swirling black dissipates.

It feels like Jamie’s been frozen in place. He should be going after Pitch, should be asking Jack for help, should be doing _something_. But his head is full of static and his limbs all feel disconnected and distant, useless, and the moonlight on his back suddenly seems icy cold.

"You made a deal?"

The sound of Jack’s voice is a shock, breaking through the static, and Jamie whirls before he even knows he means to. No shards of stinging ice could cut nearly as much as the betrayal that fills Jack’s voice.

"You made a _deal_ with him?”

"It’s not what you think - !" Jamie tries to rush forward, gets tangled in his coat, and trips, landing heavily in the snow with a short spray of powder. "Please, I didn’t mean to - he’s going to hurt Sophie!"

Jack stops short, staff raised menacingly, the look on his face fading from hurt to uncertainty. “How do you know?”

“That’s what he meant,” Jamie gasps, scrambling to his feet. “That’s the ‘agreement’ he was talking about. My sister, or me.”

Jack winces visibly. “How do you _know_ , though?” he repeats, his voice low and rough. “You couldn’t remember your own name just a few minutes ago. How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“You don’t, okay?” The words fly out like an arrow, tearing through the frozen air, leaving it hushed and still in their wake. Jamie takes a deep breath, and the next words come out softer. “You don’t. This could be a trap. You can’t trust me.” He drops his gaze, unable to keep meeting Jack’s eyes. The faint glitter of the moonlight on snow, its soft crunch and crackle underfoot, calls back to his mind that first rise out of the dark, and he looks up, through the black-sand menagerie circling overhead, eyes and spikes and talons glinting faintly in the light of the silver disc that beams down on them all.

“But I think,” Jamie starts, slowly, uncertainly, feeling silly and wondering if he’s imagining the way the moonbeams seem to wink, “that the moon told me so.”

A hiss of indrawn breath snaps his attention back to Jack, who – surprisingly – lowers his staff. Jamie takes a cautious step forward, carefully watching Jack’s eyes as wary distrust melts out of them. Jack bites his lower lip, glancing away with a slight frown, and then turns back to face Jamie, reaching out with one hand. “I -”

Something tears at the edges of Jamie’s consciousness, a burning slash across the strange sixth sense that tells him where and how his nightmares are. He cries out, spinning to see gold lash down out of the sky and slice into a hippocampus, shearing it in two and drawing another fiery line across the part of Jamie that even now can feel a fear of coming too late dropping fast toward him and Jack.

“Get out of here!” Jack shouts, diving forward and shoving Jamie out of the way as a long, deceptively graceful tendril of dreamsand snakes down and explodes in a cloud of golden glitter on the spot where Jamie had just been standing.

“Wh-” Jamie starts to ask, but Jack cuts him off with a gesture towards the sky.

“They’re coming, and there’s no time to explain. I’ll try to keep them off your back, you go find Pitch!”

Jamie almost wants to argue, but there’s no point. Jack is right; no matter how nice it would be to have someone at his side, he doesn’t have time to convince the Guardians that this isn’t a trap, that he isn’t what they think.

Besides, he realizes, this isn’t their fight.

Jack waves at Jamie, before leaping into the air, letting a wild gust of wind catch him. “Go!” The word is all but swallowed by the howl of the wind as it whips Jack up and away.

Jamie ducks another coiling rope of golden sand, which smashes into the snow a scant few feet away and kicks up a spray of sparkling ice, and calls Gryphon to his side. He swings up and onto her back, urging her into a gallop, away from Sandy’s increasingly frequent attacks, towards the treeline and the safety of the shadows there. Stinging sand grazes Jamie’s cheek as they dive forward, straight into cool darkness, the world of moonlight and snow disappearing around them.

The dark is familiar, by now, its clinging closeness comforting rather than claustrophobic. Jamie barely notices its whispers, though, all his thoughts on finding Pitch. The memory of the feeling that had tugged at him when Pitch had called him still thrums like a plucked wire strung through his ribcage. And, although he’s not certain, he thinks he should be able to follow it.

…

Jamie ends up following two false leads, looking out on sleeping children plagued by weaker nightmares that flee at the sight of him and Gryphon, before, finally, he stumbles out into a small room that he knows at once must be his destination. There’s no sign of Pitch, but the odd pull of _here_ -ness is almost overpowering. But more than that, it’s immediately obvious that this is Sophie’s room. From the bright curtains covering the single window and the striped bedspread over the empty twin bed, to the sketchbook and coloured pencils strewn across the desk and the framed family photos hanging on the wall between posters of fairies and pop stars, her personality is stamped onto the room like a brand. One look, and anyone could tell that the owner of this room feels at home. Like she belongs here.

Jamie swallows the lump that rises, unbidden, in his throat.

There’s one thing missing in this perfect, silent tableau, though, and the longer Jamie looks, the more sinister the shadows that haunt the corners seem. “Where is she?” he calls softly, only half-hoping for an answer, as Gryphon darts around the room, flowing in and out of patches of darkness before returning to circle agitatedly around her master.

The creak of a door hinge in the hush makes Jamie spin, reaching out for a weapon before he even sees who’s trying to come in. Gryphon spirals into the shape of the glaive, settling comfortably into his hand as he swings it around to face the shadowy figure framed in the yellow light spilling in from the hall.

“Aaah!”

The shriek stops Jamie cold, and the glaive almost falls from his hand.

 The person in the doorway isn’t expecting him, her rush of shock and fright at the intrusion makes that perfectly clear. She’s taller than he remembers - the top of her head is almost level with his – and though she still wears black, her clothes fit her rather than shroud her, and look as though they were chosen not to hide the wearer, but to make her stand out. Perhaps the biggest change, though, is in her face; the scowl that she’d worn more often than not has vanished completely, without leaving a trace.

 “Oh my _god_ ,” Sophie breathes, pressing a hand dramatically over her heart. “ _Jamie_?”

Jamie can’t answer. It feels like every word he might have said has crowded into his throat at once, damming it up so that not a sound can escape. All he can manage is a weak smile.

“How did you – what are you -” Sophie starts, waving her hands helplessly, but a mocking laugh cuts her sentence short. Jamie whips his glaive back to readiness, turning to put himself between Sophie and the shifting shadows of the room as Pitch’s laughter echoes from every corner.

“ _So_ sorry to interrupt this touching reunion,” Pitch’s voice sneers. Sophie gasps, her sudden spike of acute terror tasting metallic at the back of Jamie’s mouth, and he whirls just in time to see her own shadow in the light from the hall lash up and wrap firmly around her mouth, choking off her scream.

“Sophie!” Jamie shouts, but the moment he takes a step towards her the door behind her slams shut. For just a second, everything goes black. Jamie blinks furiously, not wanting to lash out blindly in case he hits his sister, trying to get a grip on the shadow that seized her, force it to let her go. It feels like trying to hold onto a handful of water, but he keeps reaching, keeps losing his grasp. It’s only once his eyes adjust to the darkness that he sees that Sophie is gone, snatched back into the dark without so much as a trace.

“What did you do with her?” Jamie yells, no longer caring if someone else hears him, or if anyone else even _can_ hear him. Dimly, he notices the way the shadows have lengthened, thick and impenetrable and reaching out like long-fingered hands, but he’s too angry to be afraid. The creeping shadows cower back under his glare. “If you hurt her -”

“You’ll _what_?”

Jamie spins. In the dark behind him, Pitch stands, half in shadow, his stare baleful and haughty without even a trace of his usual malicious glee. His upper lip curls at the sight of Jamie’s face, and he steps backwards into the safety of the dark even as Jamie lunges forward, swinging his blade in a deadly arc that passes harmlessly through the empty space where Pitch had just been. Jamie skids to a halt, only to hear Pitch’s voice echoing from behind him. “I see you’ve come alone. What happened? Did your _friends_ prove less than understanding? People can only take so many betrayals, after all.”

Jamie bites his tongue, determined not to rise to the bait. This trick might have worked on him before, when he didn’t know anything, when he was still lost and scared and confused. But things have changed. Jamie’s not lost in the dark anymore.

And he’s picked up a few tricks of his own.

“All right. You’ve got my sister.” He turns in a slow circle, reaching out with his strange sixth sense for any flicker of Sophie’s fear from the shadows around him. “What are you planning to do to her? The same thing you did to me? Because _that_ turned out _so_ well for you.”

A chilly silence descends. In the altered atmosphere, Jamie thinks he catches the merest flicker of fright, like a lighthouse beam in the shadows, turning too quickly out of sight.

“ _You_ are a failure,” Pitch’s voice says, smoothly, and Jamie’s grin feels a little like a snarl.

“Really? I thought I was some of your best work,” he counters, feeling a sharp flare of indignant betrayal, pushing it aside with more difficulty than he’d like to search instead for that glimpse of fear he’d sensed. He can’t be certain, but he thinks that this time the silence is less menacing and more sulky.

When Pitch speaks at last, his voice sounds less smooth as it echoes out of the shadows, a little strained with the effort of not betraying his anger. “I won’t make the same mistakes twice.”

“No, you won’t,” Jamie shoots back, another memory bobbing to the surface. “Because you wouldn’t be able to make her like this at all.”

“Oh, and I suppose _you’ll_ stop me.”

“I don’t have to.”

“What?” The faintest shadow of shock in Pitch’s voice as it snaps out of the dark makes Jamie’s spirits leap. He’s struck a nerve, he’s certain of it, and the veil of dark smothering Sophie’s fear is thinning. “Don’t be ridiculous -”

“You can’t do it,” Jamie repeats, with more confidence now, gripping the glaive a little tighter as the shadows begin to rustle restlessly. “You said it yourself. You’re too weak. It _took too much out of you_ to make me over. And now…” He shifts, to be better ready for any attack that might come his way. Sophie’s terror is close, so close, just out of reach, flickering like a candle flame. “Face it. You’re out of ideas.”

He pauses, listening hard, but the room is still and silent. Even the shadows have stopped their shifting. Jamie’s eyes narrow. He has to draw Pitch out somehow, force him to show his hand, or he’ll lose what little ground he’s gained.

“Go crawl back under somebody’s bed,” he adds, at last.

It’s the taunt that does the trick. Jamie just has time to sense the shadows start to shift before an inky tendril slams him back against the far wall. He throws it off, struggling to catch his breath as Pitch steps out of the dark, advancing on him with all the unstoppable menace of a tidal wave.

“Didn’t your _mother_ ever teach you any manners?” Pitch snarls, and raises a hand. Several more long ropes of semi-solid darkness uncoil out of thin air, but this time Jamie’s prepared, catching them with ease and whipping them furiously back at Pitch. The Nightmare King is forced to make several undignified dodges to avoid his own weapons, but he doesn’t slip back into the inky, dancing shadows. Jamie grins, wide and wild, and pushes forward, casting the tendrils of darkness aside.

“You’re not going to trick me into giving in to you _this_ time,” Jamie says, striking out with his glaive, spinning when Pitch sidesteps and slicing down at his side. Pitch blocks the blow with the scythe he pulls out of the dark, and swings wildly at Jamie, a snarl contorting his features, before a gloating smile crosses his face and he throws the scythe aside, holding his arms wide as it dissolves back into nothingness.

“Maybe not,” Pitch says, and the same gloating smugness is heavy in his voice. “But I don’t have to.”

Jamie fights down a smile as finally, _finally_ , the shadows clear away to reveal his sister, still bound in thick ropes of shadow, something dark over her mouth muffling her shouts. Her fear, coming so sharply and suddenly into focus after Jamie had been so carefully searching for any trace of it, is almost overwhelming. He shakes it off as quickly as he can, reaching out to pull the shadows away from Sophie, to force them to release her. It’s almost too easy, and he hurries over to her as she stumbles forward. Her eyes are wide, and she opens and shuts her mouth like a fish out of water, grasping for words that won’t come.

“I can explain,” Jamie starts, only to realise that Sophie isn’t looking at him. Instead, her gaze is fixed on a point above and behind his left shoulder. She reaches out, pointing, and Pitch’s dark laughter echoes through the room just as he spins, a moment too late.

The massive black harpoon that flies out of the dark tears into Jamie’s abdomen and throws him back, his whole world exploding into pain.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got a bit gory. That's what happens when you decide a character needs to be impaled, I guess. There are some fairly brief and non-explicit descriptions of major injuries from here on in, so tread carefully if that's something you're sensitive to!

Sophie’s scream sounds curiously dull and distant. The shadows slither from Jamie’s grasp as he falls back, impaled, and he tries to reach for them, but it’s hard to focus on anything but the red-hot lightning-bolt shrieks of pain radiating from the hole in his stomach. Black blood gushes from it in sluggish, oily waves, and all the strength seems to be pouring out of him along with it, leaving his limbs leaden and unresponsive.

Through the pain and the creeping exhaustion, Jamie doesn’t notice Pitch has stepped closer to him until Pitch grabs the shaft of the harpoon, driving it deeper into Jamie’s abdomen with a rough twist. Jamie thinks he screams, or tries to, but he can’t catch his breath and when he opens his mouth more black blood bubbles up past his lips.

“I don’t need _you_ anymore,” Pitch hisses, and it’s a _real_ hiss, like a snake’s, layered with menacing whispers and distorted, distant screams. “I – I never did.” The second part of this declaration sounds less certain, and Jamie thinks maybe he’d find it interesting or important if he weren’t impaled and choking on his own blood on his sister’s bedroom carpet. “All you were was a waste of my power. And now I’m taking it _back_.”

Cold fingers press above Jamie’s heart, icy even through the waves of scorching pain that sweep through him. He tries to struggle, but he can barely lift a hand, and when he shifts fresh agony rips through him, hot tears springing to his eyes.

There’s an angry scream from behind him, and a dark shape with streaming golden hair flies at Pitch. Jamie hears a _crack_ and a hiss of pain, and the icy points against his chest disappear. His heart leaps seeing Sophie standing, breathing hard, a table lamp raised defiantly like a baseball bat, glaring up at Pitch as he stares back disbelievingly. He doesn’t stare for long, though, before something dark and glittering that Jamie barely recognizes as Gryphon in her fury swirls out of the air and darts at Pitch’s face, tearing with sharp beak and claws and whirling sands, forcing Pitch to grab his scythe again to try to beat her off.

“Stay back or I’ll hit you again!” Sophie shouts, and Pitch gives a growl of frustration, reaching up and _pulling_. Jamie feels his own heart stutter, the dark in him all going tense in response, and Gryphon’s sandstorm freezes in place, falling to the ground in a thousand glittering grains with a soft sighing sound. Sophie raises the lamp, waving it threateningly, and Pitch gives an exaggerated yawn before reaching out and sweeping her out of the way with a wave of nightmare sand as though she were nothing but an annoying bug.

Jamie starts forward, trying to push himself up, but all he succeeds in doing is dragging his insides over the rough, jagged edges of the harpoon. A groan leaks from his lips as he tries to concentrate on the nightmare sand that must make it up, to break it up or to turn it to his own purposes, but his feeble efforts are interrupted when Pitch steps forward and yanks the harpoon free from Jamie’s stomach with a sucking sound. Jamie’s sure, this time, that he screams, but he can’t hear his own voice through the blinding pain that whites out his vision and the furious drumbeat of blood in his ears.

Faintly, he feels Pitch press a hand against his chest again, and then draw it back. As the cold pressure of Pitch’s hand starts to pull away, though, it pulls _something_ with it, the dark dragging through Jamie’s veins like razor wire in its wake. He hadn’t thought he could hurt _more_ than he already did, but he was wrong, so, so _wrong_ , and the sense of fear, the sound of shadows, starts to fade…

With sudden, perfect clarity, Jamie knows that Pitch is pulling the darkness back out of him, that if that happens, he, Jamie, will die. And Sophie, if she’s still alive, might be put in his place, a dead-eyed doll princess of darkness, and _this_ time Pitch will take no chances, make no mistakes.

With a burst of effort that makes his straining lungs burn and the wound in his stomach scream, Jamie reaches up and wraps a hand around Pitch’s wrist. He clings with all his strength as Pitch tries to brush him off, reaching out for the thread of connection that links him to Pitch. Jamie grasps it as he would a strand of shadow, shuts his eyes, and _yanks_.

For a second, he thinks it hasn’t worked. Then the sharp sense of fear floods in to fill his world again, and Pitch shudders, pulling his hand away. “What -”

Jamie sits up with a surge of unfamiliar energy, and grabs hold of Pitch’s wrist again, tugging on that faint connection between them. Pitch shivers again, and it’s _wrong_ , somehow, like something dark has been overlaid on him and shaken slightly out of sync with his movements.

Jamie can feel it, too, the icy deep-space bite of that shivering darkness pouring through the connection into him, feels it numbing the burn of agony from his wound and setting his nerves sparking with new and unfamiliar power. For the first time, he can feel the size and the shape of the power he’s trying to take into himself, can feel it _breathing_ , vast and heavy and world-shattering, and his resolve falters. Just for an instant, but it’s long enough for Pitch to regain control, snatching his hand away like it’s been burned and staring wide-eyed at Jamie as he takes a scuttling step backwards. The way he moves is also wrong somehow, a suggestion of too many limbs in the wrong places, shifting and malleable, moving less like a large cat and more like a marionette with half its strings cut.

“What are you _doing_?” Pitch demands, and the suggestion of other voices that had underlaid his when he’d hissed have grown louder and stronger, until his voice sounds less like _his_ voice and more like a chorus of angry whispers and wails and shrieks.

Jamie doesn’t answer, rising slowly and unsteadily to his feet. The hole in his stomach is curiously numb, and he knows the strength that lets him stand isn’t really his own. At a gesture, Gryphon swirls back together at his side out of the scattered sand on the ground, and Jamie leans heavily against her, glaring at Pitch.

He steps forward, reaching out, and presses a hand flat against Pitch’s chest.

And pulls.

_– for a moment his hand is wrapped around the cool metal of a handle, his shoulders burning with the strain of pulling open doors three times his height and infinitely heavy, dark leaking like smoke from the widening crack to blot out the star-encrusted sky –_

_\- for a moment he is small, holding out a hand as shimmering dark with tossing horses’ hooves and glaring golden eyes floods down deserted streets toward him in a wave that will smother him, nothing between him and the dark but belief_ –

\- and the dark is in his head.

– _fear freezing up his veins and crawling up his spine and whispering in his skull –_

_\- the death of stars, the death of worlds, so much death, his cheeks strained with a too-wide smile, teeth sharp and unfamiliar in his mouth, and the delicious tang of terror past imagining hanging in the air with the thick iron smell of blood –_

_\- always the dark, through the death and the blood and the fear and the wild ferocious joy that comes with it, through the bright stabbing light and the long fall, through the slow waning and the slip into madness, through the burn of a sacrifice made for love and the loss of a daughter, a princess, a_ friend _, through the last gasp of great plans and stolen power and the taking of the bright light who had defeated them, always, always,_ always the dark -

_\- everything is darkness, and the darkness is_ alive –

“Jamie!”

Why are the faces in front of him familiar? _Old foes_. No, that’s not right. _Old foes, old rivals, old, old hate, oily and festering_ –

“No, no,” he mutters, into the dark, “no, you’re old, you’re weak, you’re diminished, you _can’t have me_ , I beat you once, I can do it again -”

_Laughter._ His own? Coming from his mouth. Shouldn’t be, it sounds cruel and warped and multitudinous.

“ _No!_ I – I’m the Last Light, I’m -”

_Laughter, louder. Does he really think that burning brightly is enough to stop them? They’ve smothered the light of the cosmos. One human child isn’t hard to snuff._ Then why are they having so much trouble? _Not having trouble. Winning._ But they’re having to fight.

– _the storytelling girl, the child, the fatherless daughter, brave-eyed in black, succumbing, screaming –_

_\- the burning-bright boy, the hated one, the heartworm, spending the last of his light to burn the dark out of her –_

_\- the dark shrinking, the dark lost, the dark licking its wounds in the depths of the earth –_

_NO_

– _wide-swinging doors, planets tearing asunder, stars going dark –_

“But that was a long time ago. A long, _long_ time ago." So much has happened since then. He can see it, see all of it, every failure, every defeat, every small nick and chip away at the dark’s power. “They call you the _Boogeyman_. You _hated_ it! And now you claim it like it’s some kind of title? You’re not the Nightmare King! You’re not the scourge of the Golden Age! You’re barely even the monster under the bed! And you _can’t. Have. Me_!”

He stops, his breathing heavy, and looks up, sees familiar faces, sees wide eyes, sees raised weapons,  knows each of their fears and all of their old hurts, knows the tide of dark is rising in his mind again and they will be nothing but old foes in a moment.

Sees the girl in black step through them all as though they’re nothing but visions, no substance but smoke and light, squaring her shoulders and tossing back her golden hair.

“I’ll fight you if I have to,” she says, and her voice barely trembles even though she’s practically alight with terror. “I don’t want to, but I will. I think I know what’s going on, even if I can’t – exactly – believe it, and…I can stop you. I think.” She stops, juts out her chin, her fear fading slightly as she repeats it louder and more forcefully. “I _can_. If I believe it. And I do.”

“ _You don’t believe in anything.”_ The voices spill from his mouth before he can stop them, dripping with malice. The shadows gathered around them writhe and twist, dark laughter echoing from them, the assembled nightmares snorting and stamping as the little group of old foes form a rough circle around the girl who can’t see them, weapons held at the ready against a charge.

The girl in black wrinkles her nose as if she’s smelled something distasteful.

“No. Not in…Santa Claus, or fairies, or miracle cures, or any of those other stories they tell people to make them think the world’s a brighter place than it is.” She folds her arms across her chest, and fixes him with a glare. “But I believe in my brother.”

The twisting shadows freeze. For a moment, no one moves, no sound can be heard, only the perfect dead stillness of a winter night filling the room.

“Me too.” The voice comes from the boy in blue, who rises out of his defensive crouch to take a step forward, putting himself shoulder-to-shoulder with the golden-haired girl who can’t see him, staff swinging loosely in his hand. _Traitor, he doesn’t care about us, he doesn’t care about_ you _, he left us alone alone alone_ , the dark whispers frantically, but its hold is slipping, its voices growing weaker. “Jamie, you’ve beat this once, you can beat it again.”

The silence, the stillness, holds. The nightmares stand like statues, at attention around the room, the living menace leaking slowly from the shadows to leave them quiet and lifeless. The others old foes old foes old foes! exchange wary looks, but slowly, they lower their weapons as well, and their eyes on him are no longer filled only with grim fear and determination, but a buoyant light that it takes him a long moment to recognize as hope.

As _belief_. 

“Jamie,” the girl in black says, taking a step forward, holding out her hand.

He reaches out, the simple movement somehow taking more effort and more will than anything he’s ever done, and grasps it like a lifeline.

The rising wave of dark goes calm, flat, quiet. He doesn’t examine it too closely, for fear of stirring it again, and he knows somehow that this won’t last forever. It’ll be back, it will try again to take him over, to use him to rise back to its former power and rain down destruction and fear on an unsuspecting world.

And he knows, with equal certainty, that he’ll be there to stop it.

“Sophie?” Jamie asks, blinking a few times.

His sister lets out a shuddering breath, and yanks him into a hug, wrapping both arms around his middle and squeezing hard enough to drive the breath out of him.

“ _Ow!_ Um, Soph, I was kind of recently impaled -”

“Oh my god I knew that was going to work because it was _you_ but what would have happened if it hadn’t and oh my god you were _right_ you were right about the monster under the bed you were right about _everything_ -”

She breaks off when Jack runs up, laughing, and throws his arms around them both. Sophie shivers, and looks straight up at him, her eyes going wide. “What – _who are you_?! Why are you in my room? Oh my g– you’re Jamie’s old imaginary friend, you’re -” She stops, shaking her head. “What is going _on_ here?”

Jamie laughs, and he’s never been so relieved to hear his own laughter coming from his mouth. “How much would you hate me if I said it’s kind of a long story?”


	19. Epilogue

_October 31st_

There’s a chill of frost in the autumn air, a breath of the inevitable winter that follows Jack as he flies through the streets, grinning at the smiles on the faces of the little superheroes and princesses running from door to door with plastic pumpkins bobbing. Jack swoops between buildings, through a playground that stands abandoned, the equipment glistening faintly with this afternoon’s rain in the failing light. A few drops freeze as he soars past. His powers are growing stronger here as the year turns towards winter, but he still has to concentrate to freeze much.

The wind blows itself out at the edge of a patch of trees overhanging a sidewalk, sweeping Jack over the fence surrounding the park and letting him down lightly on the cracked concrete before howling off to spiral a few stray leaves down the street. Jack grins, and leans on his staff, watching as a gaggle of witches who barely come up to his knee shriek and laugh as they dash away from the dust devil, their hands clasped as they run.

“Nice night, isn’t it?” he asks, without turning to look, as a shadow detaches from the patch of dark under the trees behind him and slides through the chain-link fence like smoke.

“Beautiful,” Jamie agrees, smiling as shadow pours off of him and into the streets. The dust devil whirls back into life, and the little witches scream delightedly, their small feet slapping against the pavement as they run up the walkway to the next lighted house.

At last, Jack looks over. His grin grows wider at the sight of the smile on Jamie’s face, and a spark of mischief steals its way in. “Got big plans for tonight?”

“You’re a bad influence,” Jamie says, but the look he turns in Jack’s direction is knowing, winking, like he’s in on the joke. “Actually, I was going to stop by and see how Sophie’s doing.”

“You mean you’re going to pop out at her when she’s least expecting it and scare the pants off of her,” Jack says, and Jamie shrugs, glancing up at the trees with an expression that’s entirely too innocent.

“What are big brothers for?”

Jack laughs, and Jamie laughs with him. Somewhere in the sunset suburb, a crow croaks hoarsely, and the jack-o’-lanterns nearest them flicker.

“You do have something big planned for your first Halloween as the Boogeyman, though, right?” Jack asks, and Jamie’s smile falters slightly, his shrug a little too tight.

“I really just have to be there for it to be good. Cast a few creepy shadows, appear out of the corners of a few people’s eyes…”

“Yeah, but don’t tell me you don’t want to have some fun with it!” Jack laughs, leaping lightly up to perch on the crook of his staff. “Come on, I know you’re not usually this much of a killjoy.”

Jamie looks up at Jack, but he doesn’t say anything before blowing out a breath and turning back to face the street. The asphalt shimmers wetly under the feet of excited children in a rainbow of costumes.

When he finally does speak, it’s both not at all what Jack was expecting to hear and exactly what Jack was expecting to hear. “Is Pi- is _Lord_ Pitch still - ?”

It’s Jack’s turn to shrug, though his is much broader and less nervous than Jamie’s. “Mother Nature’s still chewing me out for dumping him on her every time we cross paths, so yeah, probably.”

Jamie relaxes visibly, his shoulders settling as he shakes his head.

“Hey,” Jack says, reaching over to poke Jamie in the shoulder, and Jamie flops his head back to give Jack an annoyed stare. “You know you’re not going to end up like him.”

“No, I don’t,” Jamie says sharply, and Jack’s face falls. He blows out a huff of breath, whispering ‘whoo boy’ as he does.

“Remember what Manny said? Well, okay, Manny never really says much, but what he showed us in the crystal? Pitch was already a genocidal rage-machine before the dark got to him, it just brought the worst of it out. Ever wanted to wipe out a whole species because you were having a bad day?” Jack teases, and Jamie rolls his eyes. But he’s smiling again, however grudgingly, and Jack puffs out his chest just slightly with pride. His first believer, his best friend, shouldn’t be sulking and worrying on his big day.

“That could be me, though,” Jamie says, so softly that Jack almost doesn’t hear him at first. “I – when I thought he was going to hurt Sophie. I just wanted to blot him out -”

“You didn’t,” Jack interrupts.

“But I wanted to.”

“Buuuuuut you didn’t.” Jack leans back precariously on his staff, stretching and yawning with exaggerated care. “Pitch is just a big grumpy murderous weirdo, no matter what he’s calling himself. And you’re still Jamie Bennett, even if you’re a little less colourful these days.”

“You really think it’s that simple?” Jamie asks, but his smile, however small, looks genuine. Jack shrugs again, flipping up into a one-handed handstand on the crook of his staff. “Jack!” There’s admiration and delight mixed into the exasperation in Jamie’s voice, and Jack grins to himself before tumbling down to land on his bare feet on the sidewalk.

“Why not?” Jack tosses his staff carelessly up across his shoulders, hooking both wrists over it. “Now. Am I gonna have to snowflake you to get you to pull some _awesome_ Halloween tricks with me?”

Jamie gives a long-suffering sigh, but he’s still smiling as he turns back to Jack, the corners of his eyes crinkling with mischief. “Well…there is this urban legend doing the rounds around here. Something to do with playing hide-and-seek with dolls.”

Jack matches his smile. “We can work with that.”

Brown and orange leaves rattle like dry bones down the street as they step back and melt into the dark, the wind setting the trees tossing and whispering. All along the street, jack-o’-lantern grins flicker, candle flames guttering, casting their shivering glow over the gathering dark throughout the suburb.

Overhead, in the deepening twilight blue of the sky, a pumpkin-round, pumpkin-orange full moon winks down through the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finished! I could never have anticipated the response that this fic got. I'd like to say a special thanks to CafCow and Anne Camp/obi-quiet for the incredible art they made for this fic, but I also want to thank everyone who read it, everyone who left a review (or two, or more), and especially everyone who stuck around despite my increasingly glacial updating pace. Without you and your encouragement, this probably would have been abandoned as a WIP two or three chapters in. 
> 
> It's been incredible, guys. Thank you.


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